Things About Tony Stark that No One Really Knows
by Crashing Star
Summary: Some are because he's worked to keep it a secret. Some are because no one's ever bothered to see. Either way, they're all things that won't be unknown for much longer. Story 6: Really, the most frustrating thing about hating Steve Rogers was that the man truly didn't deserve it, and Tony knew it.
1. Secret Identities

_Author's notes: Set after Avengers, AU in that I make up quite a few "secrets" about Tony Stark, which will mainly come up in flashback mode, as will be seen in this chapter. I have up to 13 stories planned; but if you think of a good prompt, go ahead and suggest it. If I don't already have something similar planned, and if I like it enough, I might write a chapter for it._

_**Warnings:**__ Throughout the course of the story, there will be mentions of bullying, child abuse, depression, suicidal tendencies, and some graphic descriptions of violence, but nothing too severe. There will not be any romance in this story, although there might possibly be a few hints of Pepperony or Clintasha in passing._

* * *

Hawkeye was, to no ones surprise, the first to see the girl.

Perched up on top of a nearby skyscraper, he had been surveying the rather unusual fight below, loosing a few arrows when the situation arose and calling warnings into the com when needed.

The Avengers had been called out to fight a threat downtown, apparently, there was some sort of electrical storm flying around destroying things.

Tony had quipped his disbelief at their team being sent to fight a rain cloud, but had flown off ahead like usual, and by the time the rest of the team got there, had reported that whatever this thing was, it wasn't so much of a storm as a highly pressurized field of energy, causing storm-like symptoms in its wake.

Mainly, all the Avengers had done so far was protect the rest of the citizens in the area, seal off certain streets, and manage to get the field to change directions to avoid causing destruction, all while Iron Man tried different experiments and scans to figure out what it was and how to stop it.

He'd finally decided that it was some form of magic ("Did I ever tell you guys that I hate magic?") and had suggested they keep their eyes open for anything suspicious, hopefully, the source.

"Possible source, on Franklin Street," Hawkeye reported to his teammates. "Young girl, standing dead still, staring at the sky."

"Roger that," Iron Man said. "I'm on my way."

"Avengers, assemble on Franklin," called Captain America, and Hawkeye looked down to see the Captain making his way to the girl on Franklin Street quickly, but cautiously.

Iron Man sped out of nowhere and hovered a few feet from Hawkeye. "Need a ride?" He asked, and it may have been the voice synthesizer messing with Hawkye's head, but it almost sounded like Iron Man was laughing at him.

"No thanks," Hawkeye said with a smirk. "I got this."

Pulling his zip-line arrow from his quiver, Hawkeye shot at the building two buildings down from the girl on Franklin without looking, and then, staking the other end into the wall next to him, he clicked his bow into position and rode down to the ground, being sure to seem bored as the wind whipped at his face.

Captain America sighed as Hawkeye and Iron Man both landed near him at the same time, and immediately glanced at each other, obviously trying to determine who had gotten there first.

A rivalry of sorts had sprung between Hawkeye and Iron Man that Captain America just had to turn a blind eye to. It was like the two of them were brothers, constantly trying to outdo each other for no other reason than to get a satisfaction out of winning.

They had gotten into the habit of keeping a count on any robots they took out, racking up a point system and comparing notes at the end of the day, almost always leading to a sort of half-hearted bickering when there was a noticeable difference.

They were constantly showing off for each other, it seemed, and Captain America didn't understand their need to push. He allowed it because it caused both heroes to strive to perform better than usual, but sometimes he had to step in and stop the game, because sometimes, they were so caught up in making sure the other had seen this or that thing they had done that an enemy slipped by unnoticed.

For now, however, there were more important things to deal with.

"What's with the girl?" Iron Man asked as he looked over at the possible source. The young girl had not moved, she continued to stare at the sky with large grey eyes, long blonde hair tangled and dirty as it fell into her face.

"I'm not sure," Captain America said.

Thor fell into place beside him and narrowed his eyes at the girl.

"Thor, what's your take on this?" Captain America asked. "Do you know what this might be?"

Thor shook his head. "There is definitely strong magic within her," he said. "But I have never come across her or anyone like her before in my travels."

The Black Widow fell in silently behind the group then, and Captain America nodded to Thor. "Thanks," he said. "We'll wait till Bruce gets here and then try to figure out what to do."

After a few moments, Bruce came into view. He hadn't transformed yet; since the threat was some sort of energy, he decided "smash" wasn't a good strategy, and began trying to figure things out through the com with Tony.

"This it?" He asked, nodding toward the girl.

"Yes," Captain America said. "She hasn't moved yet."

Bruce frowned. "I wonder why?" He wondered aloud.

"Because I was waiting," the girl said, suddenly looking down and smiling at them.

The only person who didn't react was the Black Widow, everyone else at least raised their eyebrows and Clint even stepped back a second, quickly recovering with a glance at Tony, who seemed too preoccupied himself to notice.

"...Waiting?" Captain America asked cautiously. "What were you waiting for?"

"I was waiting for you," she said. "I was waiting for all of you to get here. It only works when you're all here."

"What only works when we're all here?" Clint asked. "Are you the one responsible for that... energy field thing?"

"Oh, yes, the scout," the girl said with a laugh. "Don't worry, it came back to me when it found what I wanted."

"...I see," Steve said.

"So, what were you looking for?" Bruce ventured calmly.

"I was looking for a reivarinthiol," she said, as if it were the most obvious thing in the world.

"A... what?" Hawkeye asked.

"A reivarinthiol," the girl said again. "It's how I feed."

"So, you're alien, then?" Iron Man asked.

The girl laughed. "Alien?" She repeated. "Yes, I suppose that could describe me. Alien. Haha, I like the way that sounds. You species have the most fun words."

"Well, what made you think you would find a... reivarithiol here?" Steve asked.

"A reiva_rin_thiol," the girl said, putting special pronunciation on the 'n', "Can be found wherever a creature of consciousness and intelligence resides. Your species is ripe of reivarinthiols, your social system is especially conducive of the qualities desired to produce them."

"So, let me get this straight," Iron Man said. "You are an alien, and you came here to the Earth because you're hungry and want to eat humans, because we're the most delicious?"

"For someone as smart as you, you got most of that wrong," the girl said. "I came here not to eat a human, no, my people are not meat-eaters. We require a different form of energy. And I did not say your reivarinthiols were more... tasty... than others, I simply said there are a great many deal here."

"Well, I'm sorry, but we can't let you... consume... any of these... reivarinthiols here." Steve stated bluntly. "The species here are very protective, and we don't want any trouble, but you'll have to find your food source elsewhere."

"Oh, but I've already set everything up," the girl said. "Besides, it won't cause any damage. In fact, most beings end up thankful that my people cause them to deal with their reivarinthiols. To keep such a thing bottled up causes many beings to go... insane. Heehee, that word is fun to say. I like this species, you are all so funny and so full of reivarinthiols. The scout went rather wild at finding so many in one place, but once you got close enough, it calmed down and returned to me."

Steve didn't like where this was going. "I'm sorry," he tried again. "But you can't feed off any of our... reivarinthiols."

"Yeah, seriously," Tony spoke up. "That is messed up on so many levels."

"Heehee," the girl giggled again. "Hold still, the longer you avoid it, the longer it will last."

Suddenly, she disappeared and was directly in front of Iron Man, literally an inch away from his face mask, and before anyone had a chance to react, a light burst from her hands and she grasped his helmet with both hands. The light multiplied and grew brighter, the energy from it causing everyone near to fall backwards as if it were the aftershock of a bomb.

"Tony!" Steve heard Clint yelling, and then-

Everything was calm. The street was calm, the light was gone, the girl was gone, and yet, nothing had changed. It was like the light and the girl had never even happened, and if it weren't for Tony lying unconscious on the floor, the helmet shattered into a million pieces and scattered on the concrete surrounding him, he would have thought the girl hadn't been there at all.

Everyone, Natasha included, reacted this time, and they all rushed forward.

"Wait," Steve ordered, and they all waited, looking to him for orders as he stepped forward. He reached his hand to Tony's neck, intending to feel for a pulse.

But no sooner had his hand touched Tony's skin then everything fell away into nothingness.

* * *

Tony laughs at Fury's face as he stands up on the stage, cameras flashing, and he stares down at his notecards. Well, he would laugh at Fury's face if he could see the director right now, and if he could let his emotions loose long enough to let out a laugh. As it is, he knows what he's supposed to do, so with all seriousness, he looks at the reporter.

"I am Iron Man," he says.

The room goes wild.

The cameras flash faster than ever.

The reporters all gasp and shriek and jump up and start yelling questions.

The security guards have to move forward to try and stop the loud people from reaching Tony.

And Tony almost lets enough of his emotions out to manage a small smirk.

Just a little one.

He meant what he said about not being a superhero, and he's not doing this because he wants attention, or likes the gossip, or anything that he knows Fury will accuse him of wanting or liking. He's doing it because really, it doesn't matter if the world knows he's Iron Man or not.

Tony Stark knows why such things as secret identities exist. He's known for years. Secret identities exist to protect the people who are close to someone in power. For some superhero to reveal his identity would mean that the man behind the mask would now be as much of a public figure as the mask he hid behind. Anyone close to the man would be targeted as a means to reach the mask.

But Tony wasn't an anonymity. To be honest with himself, Tony was probably even _more_ of a target than Iron Man, and if he was planning on continuing Iron Man's work (which he was, thank you very much) it would be far too obvious that the robot suit with Tony Stark's one-of-a-kind Arc Reactor sticking _right smack in the middle_ and Tony Stark with Iron Man's mannerisms and mechanical and weapons expertise would somehow never be seen in the same room.

Alibis and testimonies aside, even the dumbest of the dumb would put two and two together and get "Tony Stark is Iron Man." And then everything he ever did or tried to do would be undermined by the scoffing of the general public, because if Tony stuck to such a blatant lie, he must be either unintelligent or working a con of some kind.

And really, who did he have to protect anyway? Obie? Turns out, that was who he should have been protected from the whole time. His family? Ha. He hadn't had a family since he was seventeen. Maybe even earlier. His friends? As if. Nobody was friends with Tony Stark. Tony Stark was, as he'd already mentioned, far too famous to let anyone close. The only people he had ever cared for he had loved since he had learned to talk, and they were all dead now. If anyone wanted to hurt Tony or Iron Man, they'd have to find a new way to do it.

Not to say that secret identities were underrated; Tony did still have a few secrets up his sleeve.

Namely, Jay Harrison.

He'd made up Jay when he was in college, it was his senior year and he still hadn't begun to enjoy himself. At all. When everyone you knew hated you for being young and smart and rich, what was there to enjoy? One night, after a particularly rough reminder that he was different, he'd looked into the mirror and studied himself.

What was it about him that made him so universally hated, he'd asked himself. And of course, as it always did, his mind provided him with a ready answer: itemized to improve comprehension, along with a ready stream of ideas that formed into suggestions that formed into solutions that matched themselves with the items on his list, all in the few seconds after his initial question.

Item number 1: he was young.

Solution: he acquired a secret stash of theatrical disguises and make-up, and after a time locked away in a stall in a public bathroom across town, he managed to convince even himself that he looked like an old homeless man.

Item Number 2: he was smart.

Solution: He'd seen enough videos to know the part; he didn't act drunk, but he was a far cry from intelligent. With his gruff voice, his barely perceptible lisp and his blank stare, his own mother wouldn't have recognized him. You know, if he'd had this revelation a year prior.

Item number 3: He was rich.

Solution: He left all his money behind. He left Tony Stark behind. When he stepped out of that public bathroom, all of his identity safely tucked behind a rented locker and a fake beard, he was nobody. Nothing. Worthless. And boy, did it feel great.

He walked through the park without anyone snapping pictures at him. He got several dirty looks from some of the higher-end folks (some of them his classmates) and even one rather rude suggestion that he go take a bath, among other things, but it was so much better than if he had walked through the park as Tony that it made the billionaire chuckle to himself.

He did whatever he wanted for quite a few hours, going where he wanted to go, doing what he wanted to do. He even stood in line for a soup kitchen when he got hungry, and ate the simple, yet meaningful bowl of hot broth with a few chunks of vegetables that was handed him with a stale roll, already making a mental note to donate something to the soup kitchen when he was Tony again.

After dinner, he wandered around a bit until he came across a couple of guys hanging around a dumpster, all talking animatedly about his classmates, and how the rich little snobs had reacted upon bumping them earlier that day.

Tony found this extremely funny and had ended up joining the conversation, only to walk away that night with the unexpected feeling of having two new friends. He never saw them again after that night, of course, but he didn't forget them. Joe and Ted, they'd called themselves. Rather vulgar, not the crowd he was often pressured to mingle with, but they'd been far better friends to Jay than anyone had ever been to Tony Stark.

The small excursion had cheered him up considerably, and he'd gotten through the rest of the school year by laughing at the "little rich snobs" behind his sleeve. Whenever they showed up to teach him a lesson, he would just remember that even the dirty, vulgar hobos who would never meet these people he called classmates had laughed at their expense, and that, somehow, made it bearable.

Even when he left college behind, every couple of years or so, Tony would find an excuse to have a night off sometime when he was feeling particularly enraged at life, and would sneak out as Jay Harrison for a bowl of soup and a bit of real conversation.

He was always very careful, and once JARVIS had been built, he'd always had JARVIS keep tabs on him in case something happened, but it was something to look forward to, something to remember with a smile.

So no, Tony wasn't trying to get attention or cause a field day for the paparazzi or anything like that. He actually hated the attention, really, he did. But it didn't matter if he was Iron Man or Tony Stark, they were both already too famous to have it matter. He already had a secret identity, he already had a persona he could be when he wanted to be the real him.

The world could do what it wanted to Tony Stark and Iron Man, it was penniless dumb 'ol Jay Harrison who was the real alter ego. And that would just make it all the funnier next time he went out, and laughed at Tony Stark and Iron Man along with the rest of the world.

* * *

Steve gasped and pulled his hand back, finding himself back on the street in New York.

What on earth had just happened!?

Looking around in shock, he saw all the other Avengers were just as stunned as he was.

After a few moments, Bruce swallowed. "Did..." the scientist started. "Did you all see...?"

Steve nodded numbly.

Clint looked a mixture between confused and horrified, his face almost comical, if this had been a laughing moment.

"I think..." Captain America managed. "I think we were just in Tony's mind."

"That's not all," Bruce said, frowning in confusion. "I think we were in a memory. A memory containing a flashback, no less."

Natasha let out a deep sigh and clicked on her communication device for SHIELD. "Get Fury and a med team down here," she said into it. Her face was paler than usual as she looked down at Tony. "NOW!"


	2. Technologically Advanced

"What's going on?" Fury demanded as he stepped off the SHIELD quinjet, letting the med team pass him as he turned his one good eye to Steve. "Captain?" He asked.

"Er..." Steve said. "The source of the storm was some sort of magic girl-"

Fury frowned, they had already dealt with magic enough for him to know that this meant bad news.

"And she did something to Tony," Steve said hurriedly. "She... there was a flash of light, and it broke his helmet."

"It broke?!" Fury demanded, looking at the ground littered with pieces of red and gold smashed alloy.

"Yes sir," Steve said. "And that's not all."

"Don't touch his skin," Natasha suddenly barked at the med team, one of which had reached out, like Cap had, to take Tony's pulse.

Fury narrowed his eyes at this, and turned back to Steve. "Go on?" He prompted, obviously intrigued.

Steve sighed. "Well, sir," he said. "When I went to take his pulse earlier, we... well, we sort of went inside his head."

"You _what_." It wasn't exactly a question.

Bruce nodded. "We all sort of had a flashback," he said. "It was like we were remembering something through Tony's eyes."

"...I see." Fury said. "And what was this flashback about?"

Bruce and Steve exchanged glances, silently asking how much they should tell him.

"He was at a press conference," Bruce said. "And he told the world he was Iron Man."

Fury pursed his lips at that memory. "I see," he said again. "Anything else?"

"No sir," Bruce lied calmly. "It was just the press conference. It was as if we were living it out ourselves."

"Excuse me, C-captain," one of the med team interrupted. "But, we can't do our job if we can't touch the patient."

Steve worried his bottom lip. He hated making these sorts of decisions.

"...No," he said finally. "Move him to SHIELD headquarters as carefully as possible, you can touch the suit, but don't touch his skin if you can help it. Whatever happens will happen in a secure facility. We also need to call Pepper. She deserves to know what's going on."

"I'll do it," Bruce offered. "I think she trusts me enough to accept that I can't tell her what's going on, just that something is. And someone needs to pick up the pieces of Tony's helmet, if the alloy fell into the wrong hands..."

Clint sighed. "I guess that falls to you and me," he said, turning to Natasha.

"No," she said. "We need one of the SHIELD agents to handle that."

"Why?" Clint asked in surprise.

"Because," Natasha said. "That girl... she said that "it" only works when we're all around. We don't know what's going on here, there's a chance that whatever she did to cause this flashback reaction will kill him if we don't stay near."

Clint blinked. "Well then," he said. "By all means, let's get a SHIELD agent over here pronto!"

"Captain!" one of the med team called over.

"Yes?" Steve asked, moving closer.

"We, uh..." the agent started. "We can't move him. The armor's too heavy. We need your help."

"Right," Steve said. Giving one more worried look to the other Avengers, he moved off to help the med team move Tony.

Bruce stepped away for a minute to call Pepper, and as soon as another few agents had been commissioned to pick up all the tiny pieces of helmet (one of them grumbling about not being hired out as a janitor), Clint and Natasha made their way to the quinjet, where Tony had finally been loaded, laid out on a stretcher on the floor.

Clint went to go help the pilot up in the cockpit, and Steve and Natasha sat in two of the seats, pointedly not looking at Tony.

After a few minutes, Bruce came over and stood in the entrance for a minute, staring down at Tony.

"Bruce," Steve said gently. "Come sit down. We'll be at the base in no time."

Bruce nodded and moved to sit down. "You may have to get those tranqs ready," he mumbled to Natasha. "I don't like flying at the best of times, but now... I literally feel sick."

Natasha's only reaction was to narrow her eyes, but she mentally made a note to watch Bruce carefully on the trip.

Only one agent from the med team stayed with them; there was hardly enough room on the jet as it was, they definitely would not have fit the whole team inside.

Everything was quiet as they began take off, until the med reached out to steady Tony by placing his left hand on Tony's shoulder, at the same time reaching to take his pulse by force of habit.

"DON'T!" Natasha warned, but it was too late.

* * *

The city was overrun with humanoid robots, darting this way and that, and Tony, from the safety of the Iron man suit, fired a few small missiles and shot a few repulsor rays at the bots; frowning in concentration as JARVIS gave instructions and snide comments, and as Tony read from the data being endlessly supplied on the several holographic screens that appeared to be inches from his face, but were in fact much closer.

On one screen in the upper corner, he was able to monitor the health of the other Avengers; their heart rates, their current strength, any injuries... in short, he was constantly making sure they were relatively safe.

On one screen, a proximity warning flashed, along with a series of numbers letting him know that a bot was coming up fast, directly behind him. Turning around, he blasted the bot, and frowned again as a bit of arm fell to the ground.

Tony hated a lot of things. He hated magic, for one, he hated being betrayed, for another, and he hated the paparazzi, on a whole. But one thing he really hated was robots.

Especially robots built to look like humans.

As Tony continued fighting, he let out a humorless laugh. He guessed it was true, people really did hate what they secretly feared. That is, if his opinion could truly count.

As a screen popped up with an image of the robot's schematic, compliment of JARVIS's technical scan, Tony reviewed the image briefly before spotting the weakness and reporting to the rest of the team. "Aim for the backs of their necks," he spoke into the com. "There's a wire there that links all functions to the control center in the chest, which is heavily armored. Not the necks, though. If you can get at that wire, the bot goes down."

"Got it," Clint's voice came through the com, and Tony glanced up at Clint's statistics to see the usual numbers that followed when the archer loosed an arrow, and then turned his attention to the arrow itself. A new screen popped up with a schematic of the arrow, one that, Tony noted with pride, was of his own design. Along with the schematic was data such as angle, trajectory, speed, and air resistance, telling Tony that the arrow would surely find its mark.

Another proximity alert came up, and Tony turned on instinct to fire another small missile, downing another bot.

This time, the head was the remaining discernible chunk of tech, and Tony couldn't help but let out a small hiss, once again thinking of how much he hated robots.

The reason being that he was well on his way to becoming one.

Of course, everyone knew about the Arc Reactor, "Proof that Tony Stark has a heart," although really, all it proved was that his entire existence relied on a magnet. People ran on blood. Tony Stark ran on batteries.

That wasn't the only thing, either. Tony was smart enough not to base his fear on something as insignificant as a pacemaker. Or the suit, either. No, Tony was far more machine than anyone knew, tracing back to long before Afghanistan.

The very first time being when he was nine years old, and had smashed his knee cap after "Falling" down the stairs.

The family physician had declared the damage irreparable, but one good thing about having Howard Stark as a father was that there was no such thing as irreparable. Howard had simply built him a new kneecap, and, with the help of a surgeon, had implanted it as soon as it was completed.

No one knew about young Stark's metal kneecap except for Tony, Howard, the physician, and the surgeon. "Bad press," his dad had said while giving the order to keep the ordeal a secret. Tony knew better now, though. In a world full of the nasty tabloid reporters that swooped down on news like a vulture on roadkill, the entire truth of the injury would have been exploited had they known to what lengths Howard had to go to just to keep him walking. A pair of crutches for a couple of weeks could sell the "Fallen down the stairs" theory. Major surgery involving a prosthetic kneecap, not so much.

Noticing that several robots were making their way to Clint's position, Tony raced Iron Man through the sky to down three of them, while several arrows made quick work of the other four.

"Nice shooting, Nam-Joo," He says, activating the voice synthesizer. "It almost made me lose count. Almost. 37, baby!"

"That's nothing," Clint said into the com. "I'm at 41!"

"What!?" Tony said as he flew off. "Nuh-uh! You, sir, are cheating."

He blasted a few more robots and let himself remember some of the other times he'd become less human.

When, at age 22 he'd given the paparazzi a sizeable bit of roadkill by totaling a brand new vette and managed to impress the doctors by surviving all in the same 157 MPH speed-bump experience, and the only damage was to his left leg, which was still held together by metal to this day. He considered it hardly fair that it hadn't even been done to the same leg that his metal kneecap was in.

When, four months after the Afghanistan event, he had decided he'd had enough with breaking ribs and then having to take it easy while they healed even though he hated sitting still, just to go out and get them broken again. He'd relented in a fit of either brilliancy or madness and simply replaced the whole set with metal ones. This also gave him the chance to repair the damage done to his ribs by the Arc Reactor, by integrating the new ribs into the casing itself, instead of having them painfully rub against the metal whenever he took a hit or even was jostled in a crowd.

Perhaps the worst was when, during an experiment in the lab, there was an explosion of powerful acids, that managed to take out his left hand and most of his forearm.

He still remembered howling in agony as he tried to contain the seeping acid, keeping it from reaching the rest of his arm. He watched as it melted through his bones, and he remembered feeling an overwhelming sense of thankfulness that his lab was soundproof and no one could hear him yelling and screaming and using a wide range of vocabulary taught to him by Howard and the many vagrants he'd known as Jay.

As soon as the acid was contained, mainly because he'd amputated the rest of his forearm, he ordered JARVIS to put the lab on lockdown and to not mention a word of this to another living soul. He then spent four days on overdrive, feverishly building another arm, and then implanting it where the other one had been.

The arm was perfect, he had designed it to be nearly identical to his other one, only stronger. The bones were made of the same alloy he'd used to make the Mark II, and he synthesized a new "flesh" material, synthesizing muscles, ligaments, arteries, and veins, and synthesizing them so perfectly that once he'd integrated them into the rest of his arm, it was impossible to tell which were real and which were fake.

He also created an intricate nervous system, which, not only required all of his brainpower to construct, but also required several implants to hook it up to the rest of his system.

He had synthesized a new skin, identical to his other arm, with all the "normal" things skin did. The synthesized material grew hair, got dry if not moisturized, was susceptible to tanning or sunburning, and could show bruises if enough damage was done to the forearm.

Pretty much, when he looked at the new arm in the mirror, he decided that aside from the red burn around his elbow that would fade with time, it looked pretty darn good. He was careful to wear long-sleeve shirts for awhile until the mark faded, and then he used make-up to hide it until it disappeared completely.

But the fact remained that his left arm was a work of technology. As Tony continued to get injured, he continued to fix the damage the only way he knew how: with technology.

If there ever came a time in Earth's future where robots and androids and autons had progressed enough to fight for rights, he knew where he would stand.

And now, as he shot down these androids with his robot suit powered by his robot battery and operated by his robot arms, he couldn't help but feel sorry for the things. It wasn't their fault they had been programmed for mass destruction. All they knew was what their creator had integrated into their memory circuits, they weren't much different than Dummy or Butterfingers.

And since these bots had been programmed to destroy, it made Tony second guess his own programming. His Arc Reactor was programmed to let him live so that he could destroy. His metal ribs were implanted so that he could continue to destroy without having the inconvenience of bruised, cracked or broken ribs. His arm had been created so he could continue to destroy (and so that he wouldn't end up like that poor chap that worked for Osborn, the one that went mad and mutated himself into a giant sewer pet).

And his Iron Man suit had been built to destroy, the finest weapon ever designed by the Merchant of Death.

"Big man in a suit of armor. Take that off, what are you?" Captain America had demanded, so long ago, back when they hadn't even become the Avengers yet.

Take the suit off, and he was still Iron Man. In fact, it was pretty safe to say he was now more Iron Man than he was Tony Stark.

"I know guys with none of that worth ten of you."

Tony shook his head, suddenly remembering a different kind of programming. Funny how all of his thoughts eventually reached the same point. When he'd been fighting with Captain America on the helicarrier, and feeling so angry, so... enraged.

"You know, you may not be a threat, but you'd better stop pretending to be a hero."

And then Captain America had looked away, and he suddenly realized that the rage had made everything go black for a second. And then... blue, such a brilliant blue, putting the Arc Reactor to shame. For a split second, he felt... clear, everything was clear, he needed to fight them, to destroy, to war against them. He knew his purpose, he knew... and then it passed, and he had a splitting headache. He'd put his hand up and rubbed his head. There was something wrong. The rage was driven away by alarm. There was something very wrong, and it had almost taken him.

"Sir, dozens of bots are converging 197 meters from your current position," JARVIS stated, interrupting Tony's thoughts.

The data popped up on the screen and Tony moved to their location, sending out missiles and repulsor rays alike, trying to distract himself with the burning fire show of exploding metal.

"JARVIS, when we get home, remind me to order this years fireworks display for the Fourth of July," he said. "Oh, and I need to call Pepper about tomorrows board meeting, I've decided to fire Benson."

"Any particular reason, sir?"

"He wore a checkered tie," Tony answered, shutting off all thoughts except business and the battle at hand. He couldn't afford to distract himself with negative thoughts and frightening memories. He didn't want to.

* * *

Finding themselves back on the quinjet, the entire thing gave a heavy lurch as the medic pulled his hand away in alarm, although Natasha noted that he looked more worried about her reaction than anything he might have seen.

"Natasha," Bruce said urgently. "Natasha, NOW!"

All the stress, plus the plane, was pushed over the top by the memory and the lurch, and now Bruce was beginning to turn green. Clutching at his head in an attempt to calm down, he let out a strangled yell.

Natasha was glad of the opportunity to distract herself, and she quickly jumped up and retrieved the tranquilizers, wasting no time in administering them to Bruce.

She watched as Bruce slumped down in his seat, and then she saw Steve sitting in stunned silence, staring down at Tony's still form.

"Steve," she said. "Are you alright?"

Steve didn't look up. "I didn't know," he said. "I didn't know he still thought of that, of what I said to him."

"He knew you didn't mean it," She assured him. "He figured out it was Loki, you saw that." Which reminded her, she knew who she needed to check with next.

"But it doesn't change anything," he said. "That's what he remembered. He didn't think of anything else anyone said at that argument, not when Fury commented on his weapons, not when Bruce told us he... tried, and we both know Bruce is one of his closest friends. He remembered what I said. That's what hurt him the most."

"Steve, it's alright," she said. Then she turned to the medic, who was watching them with confusion. "You didn't see anything?" She asked.

He frowned in confusion. "See what?" He asked.

Natasha smiled, not that she found enjoyment out of their present situation, but because that was what she was supposed to do. Train the newbies up in being constantly teased with secrets they would never learn.

"Steve," she said, turning back to him. "Steve, he knows you didn't mean it, and that's that. And you worrying about it isn't going to help him any."

Steve nodded, finally looking up. "You're right," he said. "You're right. We've gotta try and figure out what this all means. And how to stop it," he added as an afterthought.

"Good," Natasha said. "I'm going to go talk to Clint."

Getting up, she made her way to the cockpit, careful to avoid touching even the armor as she stepped over Stark.

When she got in, she relieved the pilot, who was looking rather grim and nervous at the same time.

She waited until he'd left the room before she turned to Clint. "I take it you saw it too?" She asked.

Clint nodded. "Kinda let go of the controls for a moment," he said emotionlessly. "Freaked the pilot out before I got control."

"Yeah, well, apparently, we're the only ones who can see the flashbacks," Natasha said. "Probably something to do with us being there at the time."

"Probably," Clint said.

They were both quiet for a few more minutes, Natasha letting Clint open up on his own, and Clint trying to come to grips with what he had seen before speaking.

"It was Loki," He said finally, breaking the silence. "That... thing, Stark described, it... it was just like what happened to me, only... Only I didn't fight it."

There it was. There was the guilt that had plagued him for so long, that had eaten him up alive. She put a hand on his shoulder, the closest she ever got to a comforting gesture, and she got him to look at her, look into her eyes.

"You _couldn't_ fight it," she corrected. "Not didn't. You _couldn't_."

"_Tony_ could," Clint snapped. "Tony felt it coming and stopped it, Loki took over me without any trouble at all!"

"Tony didn't come into direct contact with Loki or the scepter," Natasha reminded him. "At the time, he was just under a general enchantment Loki was emitting through the Hulk-cage. We all were. You didn't see the rest of it, Clint, you only remember what Tony did during that fight."

This was enough to reassure Clint slightly, and distract him as well. "Yeah, what was up with that?" He asked. "I remember that fight, I had no idea he was even off."

"I guess Tony's a better actor than we thought," Natasha said with a shrug. "What really concerned me were the signs of PTSD."

"Yeah, I noticed that," Clint said. "That's not good."

Natasha shook her head. "The problem is," she said. "He'll never admit to having it, so he'll never submit to therapy."

"Would you?" Clint asked, not because he wanted to put Natasha on the spot, but because they both knew the answer.

"No," she said. "I would think... I would _pretend_ I could deal with it on my own."

"Same here," Clint said. "I think... I think we shouldn't tell Fury about this, or about any flashbacks we... _he_ might have. It's one thing to have his thoughts forced onto someone else, its another thing for us to go report them to Fury."

"Agreed," Natasha said. "I'll tell the Captain, and Bruce when he wakes up."

Clint took a sidelong glance at her. "He transform?" He asked.

"Tranquilized him before he finished," she said. Clint looked at her. "At his own request," she added.

Clint nodded. "Good," he said.

* * *

When Bruce woke up, he was in his bed in his helicarrier quarters. All of the Avengers had rooms there, alternating between the helicarrier and their respective living arrangements. In Bruce's case, that meant Stark Tower. Despite all intentions to leave after a few days, a couple of weeks at most, Tony had continuously managed to get him to agree to stay for "one more day" until he finished this or that experiment he wanted Bruce to see.

Bruce groaned, sitting up and reaching for his glasses, which were usually left on the corner table beside his bed.

They were there alright, and he put them on just as the door chimed, indicating a visitor.

This caught Bruce off guard, he didn't normally have visitors. Looking down to make sure he was fully clothed, Bruce stood up. "Come in," he called.

The door opened and Natasha stepped in.

"Natasha?" Bruce asked. "What are you doing here?"

"I knew you'd wake up at this time," Natasha said. "And I wanted to talk to you before Fury got a chance."

Bruce suddenly remembered what had happened before he blacked out, and sat back down on the bed with a sigh.

"Oh," he said. "Yeah, that was... interesting."

"I should say so," Natasha said. "But we don't have much time. We've decided that it's in Tony's best interest if we keep his flashbacks relatively secret from SHIELD. As it turns out, we're the only ones who can see the flashbacks, so they'll only know what we tell them."

"Good, definitely," Bruce agreed without hesitation. "That's... what, doctor/patient confidentiality?"

He gave a half smile at the dry joke, and Natasha returned with one of her own. "Something like that," she agreed. "Now, do you want to talk about it? I've already talked with Steve and Clint, so I don't mind."

Bruce shook his head with a smile. "No, no thanks," he said. "I feel I can handle this one. If I do want to talk, I'll let you know."

Natasha nodded. "Fair enough," she said. "In that case, I'll leave you to it. Fury will probably call for you soon, so, be warned."

Bruce nodded as she left, then he let out a deep breath once the door had been closed, and he put his head in his hands.

Tony was a cyborg. It was that simple. Oh, he was still human, definitely. His brain didn't rely on computers to function, as far as Bruce knew, so Tony was definitely still human. Just not... all the way.

It was a weird feeling, suddenly finding out that his friend was more... technologically advanced than he had let on. Bruce chuckled at his own dry humor, noting that it was the sort of thing Tony would enjoy.

If only he had known about this back before he met Tony. Then, when they were introduced and Tony had complimented him with "Your work is unparalleled, and I'm a huge fan of the way you lose control and turn into an enormous green rage monster," Bruce could have returned with something witty about how Tony really took computer engineering and technological advancement to heart.

Of course, he never would have said such a thing upon first meeting, because he hadn't known Tony like he did now. Now, he knew Tony would have thought it the funniest thing ever. Back then, he would have bit his tongue from fear of offending the billionaire.

All joking aside, however, the fact remained that Tony had been taking a great risk, surgically implanting technology into his own body. How he could have accomplished it, Bruce had no idea. The feat was fantastical, and if he didn't know how stubborn and determined Tony was firsthand, he never would have believed that someone would be capable of accomplishing any of it. The memory of his... Tony's... arm being burned off by acids until Tony amputated it, alone, in his workshop made Bruce shudder. And then spending four days, in considerable pain with no anesthetic, building an arm with one hand, with only JARVIS there to help?

Although, stopping to think about it, wasn't that sort of how he'd built the first Arc Reactor? In pain, with no anesthetic, having to lug around a car battery just to stay alive? Bruce had heard what happened, Tony had told him the details once when they were working in the lab. Bruce supposed that after awhile, a person might become accustomed to working under extreme conditions. Not to say it became any easier, rather, it became what they knew. And if faced with a choice, people would always choose to do what they knew how, rather than take an unknown risk.

But why on earth had Tony been so adamant that no one should find out about his arm? He could have gone to a hospital, or even had a specialist come in, and then he could have worked on the new arm and perhaps been an inspiration to many. But he had kept it a secret, almost to obsession. Why?

That worried Bruce more than he liked to admit, that and the news of his smashed kneecap, gotten as a child from falling down the stairs.

Tony hadn't relived the memory during the... er, memory, but from what he did remember, it all sounded far too familiar for Bruce's liking. The kneecap was far too sturdy to be damaged just by a fall. He didn't know what had truly happened, but with all the implications in the memory, he could give a guess.

He just had to hope he was wrong in that guess.

Bruce sighed again, standing up and heading to the door. He saw no point in waiting around for news. He might as well go to the medical bay, and see for himself what kind of condition Tony was in. Perhaps he might be able to get a copy of an X-ray... although, considering what he now knew, it would probably be wise to discourage the SHIELD medical from taking an X-ray at all. Yes, that was the best course of action.

He stepped through the door and began making his way to the Med bay. He had to hurry; he had no idea how long he'd been out. They might have already taken an X-ray and discovered this secret that had been so heavily guarded for so long.

Bruce Banner was just about out of secrets; his life and everything in it had been exposed long ago. He wasn't about to let the same thing happen to Tony.


	3. Spellcheck

_Author's notes: So, just to let you all know, I completely forgot to write Thor into the last chapter. XD lol, I knew I was forgetting something, but couldn't for the life of me figure out what until halfway through writing this chapter without him as well. I went back and wrote him into this chapter, but for the last one, I've decided to just say that he flew beside the quinjet to the helicarrier, which is why we didn't see his reaction to the memory. So, if you noticed Thor's absence, that is why. XD_

* * *

When Bruce stepped into the med bay, he was met by Clint, who hurried over to him. "This way," Clint said, and then began leading Bruce to the back of the bay.

"Did they take an X-Ray?" Bruce asked.

Clint took a sidelong glance at him. "...They did, to ascertain if there were any broken bones, but under Natasha's orders, the only people to see it were her, the main doctor, and the technician who did the X-ray, and the two of them were sworn to secrecy."

"And... the memory?" Bruce prompted.

"It's true, man," Clint said, glancing around to make sure they weren't overheard before leaning in closer and whispering. "Natasha told me. She says Tony's more metal than not."

Bruce sighed.

"Fury has him under strict security," Clint continued quietly. "No one even knows what's going on, all they know is that Tony was brought in still wearing his armor and that none of us are leaving him."

"That won't start a few rumors," Bruce said, a hint of sarcasm in his tone.

"I know, right?" Clint whispered. "You should hear some of the ideas floating around. Stark's been poisoned, Stark is dying, Stark's armor came alive and we had to knock him out to end the ensuing fight..."

"So nothing anywhere near as bizarre as the truth, then?" Bruce murmured.

Clint shook his head. "The press is freaking out, too," he said. "And Tony will be upset to learn that Stark Industries has gone down by 46 points this morning alone."

"Oh, he always makes it back," Bruce said absently. "That's the problem with running a company as Iron Man. Iron Man takes a hit, Stark Industries goes down. Iron Man hits back, Stark Industries goes back up."

"Well, according to the doc, it'll be going down for awhile now," Clint said as they stepped into the high security section of the med bay.

"Tell me everything," Bruce said.

"Well, Tony's in some kinda coma," Clint said. "His brain activity's off the charts, I guess. Doc says it's always been high, but now... now he says Tony's brain waves shorted out the EEG."

"You're kidding?" Bruce asked.

"'Fraid not," Clint said. They came to a room with four stationed security agents, and Clint walked past them into the room.

Tony was asleep on a hospital bed, looking perfectly normal except in his unconsciousness, and he was hooked up only to a heart monitor.

Thor, having flown to the helicarrier alongside the quinjet, was standing against the wall and Natasha was sitting in one of the nearby chairs, looking up at them to acknowledge their entrance before going back to what she had been doing; polishing one of her knives. If Bruce hadn't known her better, the image would have made him nervous.

"Where's Steve?" Clint asked, looking around the small room.

"I relieved him," she said. "Sent him down to the cafeteria to get something to eat."

"Good," Clint said. "I don't know how you managed it. I couldn't get him to leave."

Natasha put her knife away and stood. "How much have you told him?" She asked Clint, referring to what he'd told Bruce.

"Just about the EEG shorting out," Clint said. "I... some of those words didn't make much sense to me."

Natasha sighed "The doctor said that Tony's brain waves are emitting at an uncharted level, but that he's fine in all other accounts," she said. "No injuries, no damage to the Arc Reactor, whatever the girl did simply caused his brain activity to increase."

"That's a lot of increase, to short out the EEG," Bruce noted.

"The doctor also stated that he can think of no way to bring the activity down, and until it decreases to a somewhat normal level, Tony won't wake up," Natasha continued. "According to the information gathered before the EEG shut out, the doctor thinks that a major part of the increased activity is a new form of REM sleep, whatever's going on, Tony's most likely dreaming."

Bruce had found the notepad with all this data on it while she was talking, and he reviewed the information, confirming what she said.

"Considering that there's magic involved," Bruce said. "It could be that with the brain activity this high, his dreams might be on a somewhat telepathic level," he said. "I mean, taking into consideration what the girl said, her people gather energy from this process, so the light show might have caused this increase, and the telepathic energy outflow is what gives her kind their food source."

"That could be a possibility," Thor stated. "I wonder if these beings are in any way related to the Mara?"

"What are the Mara?" Clint asked.

"The Mara are creatures of the night," Thor said. "They creep into rooms through the smallest of holes, and weigh upon a sleeper, causing bad dreams. Often, the only way to be rid of the dreams is to stop up the hole before the Mara escapes, forcing it to reveal its true form. If you cannot stop the hole, and you have no one else to stop it for you, the Mara leaves at first light, and might come back. I believe that here on Midgard, it is now called a nightmare."

"Wait a minute," Clint said. "You're saying the alien is really a nightmare eating Tony's dreams?"

Bruce frowned in concentration. "...I guess that could describe the theory, in a way," he said. "But it's all speculation at this point. All we know for sure is that Tony will be in this coma until his brain activity goes down, the activity isn't showing any signs of going down on its own, and Tony's dreams are telepathically linked to us."

"Oh!" Clint said excitedly. "I've got it!"

Everyone looked at him. "Got what?" Bruce asked.

"I know what we're supposed to do," Clint said. "The alien gave us the answer!"

"And what's that?" Natasha asked.

"Don't you remember!?" Clint exclaimed. "Right before she attacked Tony, she said 'the longer you avoid it, the longer it will last.' We have to keep going into Tony's head or the brain activity will stay the same. If I'm right, then after each flashback, the activity will go down a little further, until it's back to normal!"

Bruce looked down at the clipboard, flipping through the pages and reading the information there. "I think that could work," he said finally. "Like I said, everything's just speculation at this point, but if my theory is right, then your solution could work. And at the risk of sounding arrogant, my theory is the best we've got right now."

"We are dealing with magic, after all," Thor said. "If this is anything like the Mara, it will remain until it is properly dealt with."

"Well, then," Bruce said reluctantly. "I guess we'll wait for Steve to get back and then we'll test this theory."

Clint groaned. "I'm not looking forward to this," he said.

Once Steve had returned and they explained their theory to him, he reluctantly agreed, and they all stood up warily, none of them knowing what they were about to see.

"Well..." Bruce said with a gulp. "Here goes."

Reaching out, he touched Tony's left arm. The cyborg one, he realized with a jolt as the world fell away.

* * *

Ms. Field, Tony's tutor, was possibly the worst tutor Tony could have asked for. Ms. Field had very long blonde hair that was big and poufy, and she had huge blue eyes and bright red lips and she always wore a red suit to match. She was sickeningly, deceptively sweet, she talked to Tony like he was a toddler, all the time, even though he not only was six years old, but the smartest child on the planet.

He had, after all, built a circuit board two years prior to getting Ms. Field as a teacher. Science and mathematics came easily to him, and his father had trained him up to be ever-observant about current events, as well as teaching him history; because, as his father said, anyone who has a remote understanding of what happened ten, twenty, or even fifty years ago could predict with some understanding what would happen in the future.

No, what Ms. Field was hired to teach Tony was English.

Not that he was particularly behind, no. It was just something he couldn't teach himself, like he had everything else. He found it to be far more challenging, something that was new to him. He liked having a challenge. He could type very well, and he could read just fine, and he enjoyed creative writing, but one thing he just couldn't grasp was handwriting. Cursive or printing, he just couldn't get the hang of it.

One day, Tony's father brought in a Dr. Dawson, who asked Tony to write a paper, which Tony did. Dr. Dawson watched Tony write for awhile, then he reviewed Tony's work, and then he asked Tony to read aloud from a book he'd brought with him.

Later, Tony overheard Dr. Dawson tell Tony's parents that Tony had something called "Dyslexic Dysgraphia," which, when Tony looked it up in the dictionary, just meant he had trouble writing words and letters. That was when Tony's father gave the order to have a tutor brought in to help Tony with his English schoolwork.

And so Ms. Field had been brought in, and Tony had taken an instant dislike. Maybe it was because when the maid had first brought her into the library and introduced her to Tony, Ms. Field had looked Tony over with something like contempt and informed the maid "I can handle the little devil, no one's broken me yet," right in front of him as if he didn't understand what she was saying. Then she had smiled at him, a big wide smile that reminded Tony of the reporters who always came to the house, flashing their too-bright cameras and asking his father questions that made him tired and cranky, and she had reached forward and tousled Tony's hair.

"Hello, Tony," she'd said. "I'm your new friend, Ms. Field. I'm going to be teaching you about words and books, and fun things like that. Isn't it exciting?"

Her breath smelled like mint gum. Tony decided he didn't particularly like mint gum.

He tried, though, at first. Really, he did. But Ms. Field had the patience of a land mine, and the temperament to match. He found out the very first day that she got angry when he fidgeted, when he talked, when he answered a question wrong, when he chewed his pencil, when he swung his legs over the side of his chair, when he hummed a song that was stuck in his head, when a noise from the hallway distracted him, when he made "annoying sounds" that included the occasional "hmm" he let out when he was thinking... Pretty much, she just didn't like Tony.

He also discovered, over the course of the next few weeks, that she thought it beneath her that she had to "play governess" to a "Lazy little brat whose allowance is more than I make in a year."

This particularly annoyed Tony, who didn't get an allowance yet. His father told him he would get an allowance in a few years when he was old enough to start buying things on his own, and that, in the meantime, everything he needed would already be provided, and anything he wanted he should ask for, so that his father could decide whether or not it was good for him.

Each morning, when Ms. Field would come in for a lesson, she would lean over, smile, and say such things like "We're going to be very good today, aren't we, Tony? We won't give poor old Ms. Field any trouble with our reading list, will we?"

And usually, Tony never meant to give her any trouble, but it seemed to be the only thing he was good at. That, and mistakes.

Whenever Tony made a mistake, Ms. Field would smile dangerously, clench her teeth, and take a long-suffering deep breath.

"For heavens sake, Tony," she would say. "We just went over this three minutes ago! Don't be so stupid, I know you know this, so write it down already!"

The worst was when she would have him write papers. She would assign him a topic and let him go at it, only to come over halfway through and "See what you've got so far." She would then yell at him, mock his numerous spelling mistakes and grammatical errors, and rant about how he ought to have known better by now.

Then she would stand over Tony and watch over his shoulder, making him nervous, and when he made a mistake, she would suddenly snap and yell at him, grill him on exactly why it was a mistake, make him recite rules and write the sentence twenty times, and she would crumple up his paper and make him start over until he made another mistake.

Tony hated Ms. Field, and he didn't know why his dad didn't fire her, unless it was because Howard was hardly ever home as it was, and didn't know Ms. Field's teaching methods.

"Agh, Tony, you little idiot!" Ms. Field exclaimed, snatching Tony's paper away from him once again.

"What!?" Tony demanded angrily, already on his last nerve. "What did I do this time!?"

"Just think, Tony! You can do that much, can't you!?" Ms. Field snapped. "'I' before 'e,' Tony, always use 'i' before 'e' except after 'c'! Don't you remember?"

"Of course I remember," Tony snarled. "I just made a simple mistake, that's all!"

"You're right, it was simple," Ms. Field sneered. "I just told you five minutes ago! And that's not even the first time today!"

She scanned the rest of his paper in disgust. "This is horrifying," she said. "Even the easiest words are misspelled! 'Wrold!' Tell me, Tony," she said mockingly. "What's a wrold?"

"I meant to write 'world,' it's as simple as that," Tony snapped angrily. Under his breath he added "And _you_ call _me_ an idiot."

"What did you say!?" Ms. Field snapped.

Tony rolled his eyes. "I said, 'I'm sorry, Ms. Field, I shall attempt to do better next time-' What'd'ya think I said!?"

Ms. Field grabbed Tony's shoulders and shook him, her red fingernails digging into his skin. "Don't you _dare_ sass me again, you spoiled little brat!" She said, and Tony noted with some satisfaction that her teeth were clenched so hard they would probably be aching all night.

Releasing him with a small shove, she crumpled his paper and folded her arms.

"Do it again," she commanded, placing a sheet of paper on the table before standing up and taking her place behind him.

Tony glanced down at the fresh sheet of paper with hatred. Clutching his pencil so hard his knuckles were white, an idea sprung into his mind and he implemented it immediately, scribbling across the paper so fast that Ms. Field just stared for a moment before leaning over to read what he wrote.

_The proeblm with tutors these days is that there to impateint, rude, angry, and all-in-all the wrost possible thing that can happen to any student, without a dout. I write form expereince, my personel tutor bieng the bigest time-bomb of them all, Ms. Feild. Ms. Feild is a formidible witch, perhaps the devil icnarnate, though I beleive tha_

That was as far as he got before Ms. Field let out a yell of rage. "You-" She sputtered, her face almost as red as her clothes, nails and lipstick. "You- You little-!"

"Careful, Ms. Field," Tony said, looking up at her and narrowing his eyes. "You don't want to slip up and say something I can tell my dad I learned in vocabulary."

Ms. Field let out a strangled scoff and then closed her eyes. She took several deep breaths and then pulled a small bottle out of her purse, dropping two pills into her hand and swallowing them without water.

"That's alright, Tony," she said, glaring at him and smiling again. "I suppose it's not your fault you're so dumb when it comes to English. We'll just have to write it again now, won't we?"

When Tony glared at her, she shook her head in mock pity.

"Oh, poor Tony," she simpered. "Upset that you actually have to work for once? This is for the better, you know. We don't want the media to find out that their brilliant little darling has a mental disability, do we? Imagine if the press got a hold of one of your papers. You want to make your daddy proud, don't you Tony? Of course you do. You don't want him to be disappointed in you, right?"

Tony glared.

Ms. Field smiled even brighter. "I thought not," she said.

Walking back over to him, she took his paper, crumpled it, and placed a fresh sheet of paper on the table.

"Do it again," she commanded.

* * *

The hospital room came back into focus, and Bruce pulled his hand away with a hiss.

"What was that about!?" Clint demanded angrily.

Thor was scowling. "I'm not sure," he said. "Who was that woman!?"

"Bruce, are you alright?" Natasha asked, and everyone turned to look at Bruce, who was standing stock still, hanging his head and clenching his fists, which were shaking.

Bruce shook his head. "No," he said. "But I have to get through this. If we're going to be forced to watch Tony's worst memories, then..." He took a deep shuddering breath and looked up. "Then I'm going to have to control myself."

Natasha nodded. "Alright then," she said.

"I still do not understand," Thor said. "Who was that woman? Was she Friend Tony's... governess?"

"You could say that," Bruce said miserably, not looking up. "I guess... I guess Tony has dysgraphia, or used to, at least."

"What is this dysgraphia?" Thor asked.

"It's a learning disability," Natasha said. "If someone has dysgraphia, it means they have trouble with writing."

"What happened to the tutor?" Clint demanded. "Where is she now? Because I swear, if she got away with this-"

"Clint, calm down," Natasha said sternly. "This was years ago, we can't track down an old woman in the name of revenge. We are SHIELD's best assassins. She's a civilian, no matter what she did in the past."

Clint let out an angry breath. "Fine," he said. "But she deserves it, no matter how old she is. She threatened him with the press!"

Bruce suddenly chuckled and looked up at them. "Funny," he noted dryly. "Most kids get threatened to lose their TV privileges if they don't study."

"This is no laughing matter," Steve said lowly.

Everyone turned to him; he had been surprisingly quiet since the memory.

"Steve?" Clint asked, prompting the soldier to continue.

"There's nothing funny about what she did," Steve said. "No one deserves to be humiliated for something they can't control."

"No, you're right," Bruce said with a sigh. "What she did was wrong. From what I saw, she probably thought that Tony was just being stubborn. Not to excuse her behavior, but I mean, _I_ wouldn't want to be Tony's tutor."

Everyone thought on this for a second.

"Good point," Clint said.

"That still doesn't change anything, though," Steve said angrily. "If Tony had a problem, he should have had a tutor who could help him, not that miserable excuse for a lady!"

The corner of Natasha's mouth twitched.

"What?" Clint asked her, having noticed the movement.

"Nothing," Natasha said. "I was just thinking... when he called her a formidable witch."

Thor grinned at this, having known witches firsthand and recognizing the similarities. Bruce chuckled, though still a bit pale and somewhat green-tinted. Clint smirked, happy that at least Tony had gotten a few insults in, although it was obvious his quick-witted bites had evolved far since he had been six. And even Steve let out a half-smile at the memory.

"Still," The super soldier stated. "I can't believe she did that to him."

They all got serious again, thinking on what they had seen.

"I'll bet he never got over that," Bruce said suddenly. "The dysgraphia, I mean. In most cases, kids with dysgraphia do much better on computers than writing by hand. And who knows more about computers than Tony? I mean, I don't think I've ever even seen Tony write something out by hand, except his signature, and that would be something he would have to learn pretty early on in life."

"You know," Natasha said, frowning thoughtfully. "People with dysgraphia usually try to make up for their inferior writing skills by becoming especially adept in verbal fluency."

"Okay, now that sounds like Tony," Clint said with a smile. "I mean, we're always talking about how he can't seem to shut up. And really, he's famous for his quick wit and snarky comments."

"Alright, in my professional opinion, I think it's safe to say Tony probably still has dysgraphia," Natasha said with a frown. "Because the disability is also often accompanied by ADD or ADHD."

"ADD?" Thor asked. "ADHD? What are they?"

"They're more disabilities," Bruce answered. "Attention Deficit Disorder, and Attention Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder. Pretty much, it means a person is very easily distracted, and has trouble sitting still."

"That sounds like Tony too," Steve admitted. "It seems like he's always moving in one way or another, and sometimes he'll jump topics in the middle of a conversation. Sometimes I find it hard to keep up, and that's aside from all the culture references I don't get yet."

"So, friend Tony speaks the way he does because he cannot write, and he is easily distracted and cannot sit still?" Thor asked.

"And to think," Bruce said with a slight smile. "All this time the world thought he was just being difficult."

"Man, that's rough," Clint said. "That tutor was right, though, imagine what the press would do if they found out about this."

"Well, it would have been worse when he was a kid," Bruce said. "Back then, all the press had on Tony was his IQ and his relation to Howard. Nowadays, this news would be somewhere in the middle between "Iron Man saved the world" and "Tony Stark donates money to charity." Still, it would definitely be something to avoid."

"That brings me back, there's another pattern developing that I've noticed here," Steve said. "We've now seen three of Tony's memories, and in each one, he mentions hating the press."

"I noticed that too," Natasha said. "First when he remembers feeling elated at being able to walk through the park without getting his picture taken, second when he mentions the paparazzi in a list of things he hates, and now here, when he remembers the press as loud people with flashing cameras, who make his father tired and frustrated."

"And his tutor had to have known about it," Clint said. "Or else she wouldn't have used them as a threat to make Tony do what she wanted."

"I still say she went too far," Steve stated. Nobody disagreed with him.

"Oh!" Clint said. "We almost forgot to check his brain activity!"

"Right," Bruce said, standing up. "I'll go get the doctor, we'll have him take another EEG and see what he finds out."


	4. Deathbringer

_Author's notes: Really angsty chapter; I finally got a chance to watch Iron Man 1 (I know, long overdue, but at least I've seen it now) and although I already knew what happened, it was another thing altogether to watch it play out. MAJOR SPOILERS FOR IM1 IN THIS CHAPTER. If any of you are like me and just haven't had the opportunity to watch, you might not want to read this chapter. Unless you're fine with spoilers, in which case, go ahead._

* * *

While Bruce worked with the doctor to set up the EEG scan, the rest of the Avengers decided to take the time to grab a bite to eat, all except for Steve who had just eaten and instead went to inform Fury of the possible theory they were working on.

After about a half hour they all began making their way back to the med bay, where Bruce was just finishing up.

"Hey," he said in greeting when they arrived, a relieved half-smile on his face.

"I take it there's good news then?" Clint asked.

"Yes and no," Bruce answered. "Tony's brain activity is still high enough to short out the scanner, but we got a full thirty seconds of data before it overloaded. The results of the test showed that Tony's brain activity went down slightly after the flashback. However, it didn't go very far.."

"So what does this entail?" Thor asked. "What does this 'scan' mean for us?"

"It means Tony's going to get better after every memory, like Clint thought," Bruce said. "But at the rate it's happening, it's going to take a long time to get there."

"About how long?" Clint asked. "How many memories do you think we'll have to watch?"

Bruce shrugged. "I really don't know," he said, all traces of a smile gone. "But I don't want to wait too long between memories. We have no idea what could happen if we put it off, it might make him worse."

Steve sighed. "We'd better get to it, then," he said. "We'll all have to be ready for anything, there's no knowing what we'll see next."

Clint groaned. "I don't like this," he noted. "I feel like I'm invading his mind."

Natasha glanced at him, while Steve frowned. "...In a way, we kind of are," he said. "But we have no choice. It has to be done."

This didn't reassure Clint much, and Natasha reached forward and put her hand on his shoulder for a minute. He sighed and nodded.

"Alright," he said. "Let's do this."

Bruce, already near the bed, nodded back. "For the record," he said, putting a hand out towards Tony's arm. "I hate it too."

* * *

Tony walked into the living room and looked around. Where was everyone? He had sent Pepper to hack into the Stark Industries database over an hour ago. He knew it would take awhile for her to get to the factory and then to download the files and then to drive back, but really, he was getting worried.

Suddenly, he heard his phone going off, and finding it, he looked at the caller ID. It was Pepper. Relief flooded through him and he just sat and looked at her picture for a short moment. "No news is good news" was the worst saying ever invented. No news meant that for some inexplicable reason, someone you cared about could not get a hold of you. A phone call from Pepper meant that whatever the situation, she was able to place a call, which was at least something.

Pressing the button to receive the call, he held it up to his ear. Right before he could say anything, though, there was a buzzing right behind his head, and the frequency in the room changed so fast and so drastically that it rang in his ears. He knew what it was immediately.

His own design, the Sonic Taser used high-powered frequencies to cause short-term paralysis to any within range, except the wielder, provided they wear the accompanying ear-aids, designed to cancel out the frequency.

For an instant, Tony was stunned. The device had never been approved, it hadn't been fabricated. Nobody could have one, he hadn't even finished the prototype, and only a handful of people had the schematics. Who-?

Horror replaced his confusion as his body froze, in compliance with the device's design, and his phone was quietly pulled from his hand.

"Tony, are you there?" He heard Pepper's voice coming through, but he couldn't say anything, he couldn't respond. He couldn't move, he was completely helpless-

Whoever had done it was slowly lowering him to lean against the couch, hands surprisingly gentle.

"Breathe... Easy..."

No.

No, no.

No, he couldn't believe it.

He simply could. Not. Believe it.

The voice was familiar, far too familiar.

It was Obadiah.

Obie. How on earth could it be Obie!?

"Easy..." The man said again, his soothing drawl comforting, and at the same time, sending chills down Tony's spine.

This couldn't be happening.

No, he knew what must've happened. Whoever was behind this, whoever was behind the entire mess with the Ten Rings must've been forcing Obie's hands. Perhaps there were two attackers behind him, the one who had it in for Tony and then Obadiah being forced to join, but doing what he could to help Tony while he was at it.

Like Yinsen.

Yes, that had to be it.

Obadiah lowered him all the way, and then held the device in front of Tony's face so he could see it.

"You remember this one, right?" He asked quietly.

There was something wrong with his voice. He didn't sound concerned or afraid, or even upset. He was just talking normally.

And now that the device was off, Tony could tell that there was no second person.

It... it was Obie?

"It's a shame the government didn't approve," Obie continued. "It has so many applications for causing short term paralysis."

He stood up and began to walk away and Tony, unable to turn his head to see what was going on panicked, unable to even form his wild questions and baffled fears into words in his own head.

And then Obadiah was in front of him, reaching out and closing his hand over Tony's chin- sending another flare of panic through Tony, who hadn't let anyone touch his face since Afghanistan- and turning his face to look directly at him.

Obie smiled- he_ smiled_- at Tony. "Ah, Tony..." he sighed, before reaching up and taking the protective hearing gear from his ears. "When I, uh... ordered the hit on you-"

If Tony could have shown any more horror than he had when initially paralyzed, he would have. As it was, hearing his godfather say those words sent everything crashing down around him.

"I worried..." Obadiah continued to drawl, turning to something that Tony couldn't quite see and removing an object from a box with a click. "That I was..." The object began to whir; and Tony could now see it in his peripheral vision, as Obie had straightened. It was something round and metal, the exact same width... as the Arc Reactor.

No.

"...Killing the golden goose," Obadiah finally finished, leaning over Tony and setting the device in place, directly over the faint blue glow coming from under Tony's shirt.

He pressed a button and the device clamped onto the Arc Reactor. "But, you see..." Obadiah said. "It was just-" The device yanked the Arc Reactor sharply, eliciting a gasp of pain from Tony even through the paralysis. "Fate, that you survived that," Obadiah said without a hitch in his breath.

And then, he twisted the device, and slowly... ever so slowly... lifted the glowing blue reactor from it's case.

"You had one last golden egg to give," Obadiah said with a relish, staring down at the reactor with lust. His eyes flickered over Tony's face."Did you really think," Obie said, leaning in closer. "That just because you have an idea, that it belongs to you?"

He paused to let that sink in. "Your father..." he began. "He helped to give us the atomic bomb. Now, what kinda world would it be today if he was selfish as you?"

He yanked the device.

The cord detached itself from the magnet with another sharp pain that caused Tony to once again gasp even through the paralysis.

Obadiah examined the Arc Reactor carefully, curiously, as if it were a simple piece of technology, and not his godson's heart.

He unhooked it from the device and held it up in front of Tony's face.

Tony could already feel the effects, a slow, dull pain was building in his chest where the shrapnel began pulling towards his heart again.

But that didn't hurt as much as the look on his godfather's face as he stared at it hungrily. "Oh, it's beautiful..." he whispered. "Oh, Tony... This is your Ninth Symphony."

Setting the extraction device carelessly to the side, he moved and sat next to Tony, still holding the Arc Reactor where Tony could see it.

An inch away from his face.

The dull pain began to escalate and Tony began having a difficulty breathing. And his life was an inch away from his face, and he couldn't move a muscle.

"Oh, what a masterpiece, look at that..." He slowly turned it. "This is your legacy."

It slammed hard into Tony, the memory of Yinsen, sitting across from him, on the other side of the fire, on that day in the cave. _"Look, what you just saw, that is your legacy, Stark!"_ He'd said, about the weapons, about the guns and the missiles, in the hands of terrorists, with his name on each and every one of them. The memory of Yinsen, dying on the dirt, whispering through the pain and the oncoming death. _"Don't waste it. Don't waste your life..."_ His eyes going glassy, he's dead...

"A new generation of weapons," Obadiah continues, bringing Tony back to the painful, excruciating, but not quite as painful as his memories, world of the present. "With this at it's heart. Weapons that will help steer the world, back on course."

Weapons. That was still his legacy. What had been supposed to give him another chance at life, what had been supposed to enable him to fix what he had so effectively destroyed, was fated to become the power source for the deadliest weapon known to man. That was his legacy. Even when he tried for good, all he could create was destruction.

The Merchant of Death.

"With the balance of power in our hands," Obie continued. "The right hands." He finally pulls away from Tony and opens the nearby box. "I wish you could've seen my prototype." He says, placing the Arc Reactor in the box. "It's not as... uh, it's not as... conservative... as yours."

Tony feels his desperation deepen. Weapons. Obadiah had taken the suit, and had updated it with even more weapons. The suit was already a deathbringer, but Obadiah had made it even more lethal. The images of a hostage Gulmira flashed in Tony's mind. That was the world, with Obadiah at it's head. Complete and utter terror and pain and death and everything Tony had worked so hard to stop.

His heart broke at the thought of a world in captivity. At the thought of innocent children being torn away from their families, with no idea what was happening, watching as their parents were killed in front of them. Like that boy in Gulmira, who had almost experienced it if not for Tony.

"Too bad you had to involve Pepper in this," Obadiah stated with a slight shake of his head, as if he were mentioning a rainfall on a day they had scheduled a picnic. A slight shame, a bit of an inconvenience, but stating that what will happen will happen. "I really would've preferred it if she'd lived."

And now Pepper was going to die, too. The man he had trusted the most was going to kill the woman he trusted the most. That only left Rhodey, and with Obadiah about to set himself up as the new regime, that could only last for so long. Everyone Tony cared about was either going to die, or was painfully, unexpectedly, his worst nightmare.

Obie shut the case with a click and stood up, walking away without so much as a glance behind, leaving Tony dying on the couch.

And Tony still couldn't believe it was Obie.

Obie, the man who had been there for him as long as he could remember. Obie, one of the only three people in the world who Tony had trusted whole-heartedly.

And now his heart had literally been ripped out by the man.

Tony might even go so far as to say he had trusted Obie even more than he had trusted Rhodey and Pepper, simply because... Pepper, he'd had ten years. Rhodey, he'd had fifteen. Obie... there were pictures of Obie holding Tony as an infant.

Trust couldn't run much deeper than that.

As Tony lay there helpless, the pain clouded his senses, and he yearned desperately for an escape, a way to black everything out and forget...  
But instead, he began to remember...

_Seven year old Tony skipped down the stairs to the living room, where Obie was playing a light melody on the grand piano. The older man turned and smiled at Tony, who climbed up on the bench to sit next to him, watching in fascination as he finished his song._

_Once the piece was over, Obie turned to Tony._

_"Hey, there, champ," he drawled. "How're you holding up today?"_

_"Good," Tony said. "My side doesn't hurt so much anymore, and the bruise is fading now."_

_"Hey, that's cause for a celebration," Obie said with a smile, standing up. "I've got the evening off, so what'd'ya say we go down to the shop and buy an ice-cream?"_

_Tony's eyes lit up excitedly. "Can we!?" He asked._

_Obie leaned over and scooped Tony up, hoisting him onto his shoulder. "You bet," he said. "Your father's busy right now, and your mother won't be back from the dinner until late. We'll go down to the stand right now, and then when we've finished, we'll come back and we'll get you some dinner."_

_"Dessert before dinner?" Tony asked, feigning shock. "Why, whoever heard of such a thing!?"_

_Obie laughed and walked to the elevator, ducking so as not to run Tony into the wall as he stepped through. "We could skip the ice-cream if it would make you feel any better," he suggested playfully._

_"NO," Tony gasped. "I'll just file this away in the Top Secret category," he said. "Put up a firewall, so no one will get any information from me."_

_"What they don't know won't hurt 'em?" Obie asked._

_"Correct," Tony said with a smile._

_They stepped from the elevator; Obie again ducking, and walked through to the garage, setting Tony down so he could climb into the back seat._

_They drove to the ice cream shop, and stepped inside quickly to avoid detection._

_"Huh," Obie said, looking up at the board. "They've got a special strawberry banana mixed cone today," he said. "That sounds promising. I think I'll try it. What about you, Tony?"_

_Tony looked up at Obadiah and smiled. "I want one of those too," he said. He wanted to be just like Obadiah._

_Obie smiled. "You heard the boy," he said to the cashier. "Two Strawberry banana swirls on waffle cones. And, uh..." he slipped a bill into the cashier's hand, who stared at it in shock for a moment. "Do it quick," Obie drawled._

_Getting their cones in record speed, the two rebels made their way back to the car, where a small group of people was already gathering._  
_They drove back to the mansion and walked in through the servant entrance, laughing and talking, ice cream melting down over their hands, and Obadiah began singing loudly, causing Tony to giggle some more._

Tony suddenly yelled in agony; the paralysis dispersing as quick as it had come. He felt so cold, so numb, and yet, he was on fire. He was burning, he had to get up, to help Pepper, to destroy the prototype, to protect that little Gulmiran boy from Obie...

His spare reactor. The old one, the one he had created with Yinsen. It was down in his workshop, he could get it, put it in, stop the burning... Stop the killing... Stop Obadiah from totaling the world in a suit with Stark's name on it.

He had to stop his legacy.

* * *

The instant the Avengers found themselves back in the hospital room was the instant Bruce blacked out and the Hulk roared in anger. For an instant, none of the others could react; what they had just seen overcrowding all other thoughts, and then Clint yelled and pulled an arrow from his quiver. It attached itself to a tranq head, and went zipping point blank into the Hulk's neck.

The Hulk roared angrily again and reached back, pulling the arrow out of his skin and examining it for an instant before turning to Clint.  
He took one menacing step... faltered... fell.

The other Avengers stared down at him for a moment.

"...Where is this... Obadiah?" Thor asked, the quietest he had ever been.

"Dead," Natasha spat the word with relish. She had always known, really, what Obadiah had done, but she'd never seen it, never experienced it first hand. If the first thing you learned about someone was that they had been evil and had died because of it, you couldn't feel the same betrayal as those who had been taken along for the ride.

But now, she knew, and she only wished he had been kept around a little longer so she might've had the pleasure of killing him herself.

"How easy?" Clint asked dangerously, and Natasha smiled.

"Incinerated," she said. "Torn to shreds by his own suit and then burned alive in a Reactor explosion so big it burnt out half the city."

Clint nodded. He wouldn't have to order Fury to exhume any bodies then.

"I don't think Tony would have approved," Natasha stated, having known what he was thinking.

"You don't?" Clint asked in surprise. "After what the man did to him, you think he wouldn't want revenge?"

"I didn't say that," Natasha said. "I think of all people, Stark would want revenge. But wanting something and approving of it are two completely different things. Tony's entire life since Afghanistan has been driven towards ending violence. Do you think just because someone deserves it means it should be given? I think the biggest thing we've learned just now is that Tony will do what is necessary, nothing more. He was determined to stop Obadiah, not get revenge."

"No," Steve said suddenly, getting the attention of Clint, Natasha and Thor. "The biggest thing we've learned just now is why Tony does not trust."

He paused, licking his lips in concentration before continuing. "He doesn't trust anyone," he said. "Not SHIELD, not us, not anybody. He trusts Pepper, and he trusts Rhodes, and even to them, he doesn't tell everything."

Natasha narrowed her eyes; remembering how he hadn't even told Pepper that he had been dying of Palladium poisoning. It was true, he trusted no living soul.

"But we would never do anything like that, he knows that, right?" Clint asked.

"A warrior who has seen his closest friend and confidante turn into his greatest foe never again knows who else might do the same," Thor said solemnly. "Because, if someone who knows you deeper and more than any other alive takes that knowledge and turns it against you, how much more will someone who sees only the sides you allow them to see?"

Natasha felt surprised and moved at Thor's wisdom, and she remembered with a jolt that the villain they had all been brought together to fight had been Thor's younger brother after all. Who knew a man more than his brother?

Which opened a few questions in her mind: How much did Thor trust them?

That would have to wait, however, as Clint suddenly yelled out in anger and smashed a hole in the wall with his fist.

Steve looked up in surprise and stood up quickly. "Clint?" He asked.

"I'm fine," Clint said angrily, clutching his wrist. "It's just really messed up, you know? I can't believe that _dog_ did that to him..." He closed his eyes and took a deep breath. "He gloated," he said. "He tore Tony's heart out and then waved it in his face. Who _does_ that!?"

"A powerful man who sells innovative weapons to terrorists," Natasha said. "For someone who spent their entire life creating new and improved ways to kill more, faster, bigger and better, removing a single obstacle, even a personal one, becomes nothing more than a routine." She frowned. "You become desensitized," she said. "Killing becomes second nature to you, until you can kill a friend without so much as a second glance because it's all a part of the job."

She caught Clint looking at her sorrowfully, and suddenly realized what she was saying.

She narrowed her eyes, and Clint blinked, removing all traces of what he had been thinking.

She had been talking about Obadiah. Not herself. This was not about her. She hadn't even thought about it. True, she had been desensitized. But she'd overcome. She'd slowly allowed herself to become human again. She didn't let her past cloud her mind and keep her from what really mattered.

She didn't.

"But didn't Tony create most of the weapons?" Steve asked, confused. "I mean, he knew them better than the technicians themselves, I thought."

"Yeah," Clint said, turning to Steve and giving Natasha a chance to recover. "But Tony really believed they were being used to protect America."

"Obadiah practically brainwashed him from an early age," Natasha explained, back to her usual composed self. "He was taught that what he did was for the protection of the innocent, and it wasn't until he saw his weapons in the hands of the Ten Rings that he realized he'd been lied to. The instant he suspected there was something wrong with the system, he eradicated it."

"Well then," Steve said. "Thank heavens for Obadiah."

Everyone froze.

"...What?" Clint finally managed.

Steve looked at him. "If Obadiah hadn't ordered the hit on Tony," he said. "Tony would never have realized he'd been had. The world would have been left to Obadiah's mercy, and would probably be in the hands of the Ten Rings right now. Busy with that threat, I never would have been found, Bruce would not have been helped, Thor and Loki would have been left to their own devices, and it would have just been the two of you against the world, Tony part of the enemy, never even knowing he was being fought."

Everyone thought on this for a moment.

"...Can you believe what we would be doing right now," Clint stated, speaking to Natasha but looking at Tony, who was unconscious on the bed. "If we had to fight an entire army armed with Tony's weapons?"

Natasha had to admit that even she shuddered at the thought. The man had created an unbeatable suit of armor powered by a pocket-sized power generator in a cave with no computers, one assistant, and whatever he could pull out of his missiles. There was no telling what he could have created with the right push from Obadiah.

But the man had been foolish, he had believed that he could better perform his plan without Tony in the balance, and had thus sealed his own fate, and determined the fate of the future he so desperately wanted to control.

"Yes," she said solemnly. "Thank heavens for Obadiah."


	5. Under My Protection

_Author's notes: Avengerscrazygal, I wanted to reply to this directly, but that wasn't an option with you... No, I have not seen all of the Iron Man movies, actually, I've only seen IM1 now, and the Avengers. I've done my research on Iron Man, so I know the plot of the first two movies, and I know quite a bit of his comic book history as well. Because of this, there might be a few discrepancies in chapters mentioning IM2, like this following chapter. If anyone spots any, please, let me know so I can fix them._

_Also, because I have not seen IM3 and actually don't want spoilers, this story will take place after the Avengers but before IM3._

* * *

When Bruce came to, he was back in his helicarrier quarters. Sitting up, he rubbed his eyes and reached for his glasses, putting them on as he walked quickly through the door and to the med bay.

When he reached Tony's room, he found Natasha and Clint already there.

"Hey, Bruce," Clint said, not looking up from where he was methodically cleaning his bow. "How ya feeling?"

Bruce chuckled. "Mad," he admitted. "But really, what else is new?"

Clint guffawed. "Yeah," he said. "You've got a point there."

Bruce moved to sit down in one of the other chairs. "Where's Steve?" He asked. "And Thor?"

"They'll be here soon," Natasha said. "Thor went on a quest for the "Blessed Milk of the Dancing Goatherd's Beans," whatever that means, and I think Steve went to cool off in the training room."

"Ah..." Bruce said, glancing over at Tony. "Did the doctor take another EEG scan?"

"No," Natasha said. "I decided that we should wait through a few more memories before we tried again. SHIELD only has so many monitors for him to short out."

"Makes sense," Bruce said, but he was slightly upset that they hadn't taken the scan. He needed something to distract him while they waited. He wasn't sure he could handle just sitting around watching Tony sleep. It was... weird.

Natasha seemed to pick up on his annoyance and leaned back in her chair. "So," she said. "You didn't get much of a chance to talk about that last memory before the Hulk took over."

Bruce chuckled dryly. "That's an understatement," he said, removing his glasses to rub his eyes. "...I knew about Obadiah before that, I knew he was the one who ordered the hit, and I knew he stole the Arc Reactor to power his suit, but... I never knew the details."

"No kidding," Clint said fiercely. "I wish I'd been around when it happened. If it weren't for that mission in Mali..."

He shook his head with a sigh, and Natasha looked amused. "And what would you have done?" She asked. "Your arrows are the best, but they're no match for Tony's armor, let alone the War Monger."

"Maybe I would've shot the dog before he could get to the door, or his precious suit," Clint said. "Because you can bet that if I knew someone had it in for Tony, I wouldn't let him out of my sight."

"He would argue that that's too overprotective," Bruce said with a small smile. "And then he would somehow lock you out of the system and give you the slip."

"Good luck with that," Clint said. "And with Tony trying so hard to give me the slip, Obadiah wouldn't have been able to keep up."

Steve came in then, looking tired and a bit sore but strangely chipper.

"Hello, Steve," Natasha said. "How was the workout?"

"Good," Steve said, sitting down. "How's Tony?"

"The same," Clint said. "Lemme guess: You pretended the punching bag was Obadiah?"

"Bags, actually," Steve said. "I went through three of 'em."

"Wow, impressive," Natasha said.

"Thanks," Steve said, right as Thor burst through the door.

"Friends!" He said. "I have brought you gifts!"

Everyone turned to see he was holding five cups of iced coffee.

"Wow, thanks," Clint said as Thor handed them all out before sipping through the straw of his own. "I thought you were looking for "Blessed Milk of the Goatherd's Beans" or something."

Thor laughed. "Have you not heard the legend of how coffee was discovered?" He asked.

"Nope, can't say that I have," Clint said, bringing the straw to his lips.

"Google it," Thor said, much to everyone's surprise.

"...Right," Bruce said after a moment. "Well... Shall we get to it then?"

Steve sighed and put down his coffee. "Might as well," he said. "Go ahead, Bruce."

Bruce took a moment to wonder how he had somehow been elected to be the one to send them into Tony's head but decided it wasn't worth arguing about, so he stood up and walked over to the bed, once again touching Tony's arm.

* * *

A lot of people thought they had Tony well figured out. Rich, so he was a playboy. Smart, so he was a know-it-all. World-renowned superhero, so he was stuck up. And a lot of people were right.

Playboy? Before he'd found a purpose, a reason to actually try, he'd wasted his life as a playboy.

Know-it-all? He literally did know it all, whenever he found something new he didn't know about, he researched it and studied it and went out to it's place of origin to better understand it, just because the thrill of learning something new excited him. Heh. Real know-it-all symptom right there. When you did your homework because it was fun instead of because you had to, you knew you were a know-it-all.

Stuck up? Well, let's face it, Iron Man was pretty amazing. Who wouldn't be proud of being a superhero? Well, maybe Captain America would argue that virtue is it's own reward, but still. Most people would be at least a little bit proud to see their face (mask) on the news with the caption "SUPERHERO SAVES THE DAY."

So Tony thought it was alright to be a bit proud of being Iron Man. Besides, the suit was pretty much the only thing he'd ever made that he was actually proud of. That and the Arc Reactor. Because really, creating a clean energy power source that generated enough energy to run his heart for 50 lifetimes that was actually small enough to fit in the gaping hole in his chest? That alone was an achievement great enough that even his dad would have been proud of him, let alone that he had thought of it, designed it, built it and installed it in a cave. In a week. With recycled materials. And only one assistant.

So yeah, Tony was pretty stuck up, he would admit it. He didn't want to be, but he was.

One thing the world had got wrong, though, was that he was selfish. "There's Tony Stark, war profiteer. Hundreds of lives in the balance, the choice between life or death goes to the highest bidder. He'd sell you his closest friend for a profit."

Even after he became Iron Man, he still heard it. "There's Iron Man, wannabe superhero. Do you know how much money that suit cost to build? He could be opening hospitals and orphanages in third-world countries and instead he's building toys to make him feel like Superman. Just another cool car for his garage."

Of course, they all forgot all about the hospitals and orphanages he had already built, they forgot all about the Intelli-crops and the advances in medicine, they forgot about the millions he donated to charities every year, they forgot about the clean energy technology of the Arc Reactor Sr. (Okay, he was totally going to call it that from now on, and his Arc Reactor would be Jr.) that powered the city...

"He's just throwing a bone to the environmentalists," They'd say. "He could be doing more if he wanted to."

Tony wasn't nostalgic, but there was a reason he'd kept Pepper's present to him, the old scrap-metal Arc Reactor she'd had engraved and cased. Turns out, he had been extremely lucky she'd done so, but still. He'd kept it because she'd taken the time to see what it represented, and had gone the next step in making him see it to.

"PROOF THAT TONY STARK HAS A HEART," she'd had engraved. He'd about laughed when he read it, and then he'd actually felt good about it. That had been the first time he'd been accused of having a heart. He'd decided he liked it.

Of course, it didn't change anything. No matter what he did, people always just decided he was selfish, even before they'd met him. "I saw the footage," Steve had said. "All you really care about is yourself."

The problem was, Tony cared about everyone. Until they hurt him, that is. Then they earned his hatred. Before that, though, Tony cared. He cared about the people who had died in the Chitauri attack, he cared about the people who had died in the attack on the helicarrier (and not just Phil either) he cared about the people who had been traumatized by said events.

He cared about the people in Calcutta who no longer had Bruce there to take care of them. He cared about the kids in... Wisconsin or something... who slept in the cold at night because their parents were too poor or too dependant on their next fix to pay their heating bills.

He cared about the people who had no jobs and he cared about the businesses collapsing because they had no money to pay the workers they already had. He cared about the people who died without medical care and he cared about the people who died even with medical care. He cared about the people who went hungry, he cared about the people who flipped him off in public, he cared about the people who hand-made rugs in third-world countries, who had never even heard of such a person as Tony Stark.

Maybe since he cared about everyone the same, that was why people thought he cared about no one. "Highlight everything, highlight nothing." Or however that saying went.

But whenever he showed his emotions to anyone, he ended up hurting anyway. Case in point: Obadiah. Tony couldn't risk letting anybody know just what they meant to him, or they might take advantage of his care and use it against him. He only showed his care to Rhodey and Pepper now, but they had already sort of known, so that was alright.

And he showed it to Bruce, but really. That was allowed because Bruce had been treated so abominably ill by everybody else he knew that he had tried to kill himself. Even though Tony hadn't known Bruce all that well when he'd found out, his heart had broken at the admission. No one deserved to be brought so low that death was a way out.

Since Tony cared about everyone, he did his best to protect everyone. Every preventable death he took as an act of violence against him personally, and avenged it as such. It really was too bad he hadn't qualified for the Avengers. The name suited him perfectly.

Anyway, that brought him to the next stop in his train of thought: The Avengers.

He cared about them, duh. They were people. He cared about people. Not only that, but he was responsible for their well being. Anyone who stood up with a group of people knew this to be true: Every member was responsible for the health and welfare of every other member. Like the three Musketeers, all for one and one for all. Everyone took care of the one, and the one took care of everyone. It's just how it worked.

So whenever he stood up alongside Captain America, Hawkeye, Black Widow, The Hulk, and Thor, he knew he was responsible with making sure they all got out safely. It was like Rhodey had said that one time: "When I look into a mirror, I know that everyone who has this uniform on, has got my back!" Except he had no uniform. And he wasn't a soldier. And for him, it was sort of the other way around, where every time he looked into a mirror, he knew that everyone he would come into contact with that day would be safe.

But even though Tony cared about everyone, there was a difference between them and the people he considered friends. A brother was different than a friend at the office, I guess you could say. He would do everything in his power to protect those in his care, but if you made it to his list of friends, let's just say you got a little extra attention thrown in, free of charge.

That's the way it was with Pepper and Rhodey, and Happy and Bruce. They had made it to the "friend" category. And while he defended everyone in the world, he became fiercely protective of his friends.

Pepper had learned long ago that JARVIS kept tabs on her at all times through her phone. As long as she had it with her (and when didn't she have it with her) Tony could be alerted of a dangerous situation within a moment's notice.

Rhodey was more than capable of taking care of himself, and had even had Tony's back a few times as well, but Tony still kept careful tabs on him because for a man working in Rhodey's position, danger was a part of the job.

Happy was also capable of handling just about anything thrown his way, as long as it was as human as he was, so Tony would be there to handle anything else.

And as for Bruce, the guy didn't need any physical protection Tony could offer as Iron Man. He had the Hulk for that. But Tony did what he could, and if that meant simply being there to remind him "Hey, you're not worthless" or flying down to secret military bases and giving a piece of his mind (and we all know that's his best feature) to a certain General Ross, than so be it.

But aside from Bruce (who could definitely handle it), his friends were all targeted on a daily basis, by low-lifes trying to use them to get to him. Being friends with Tony Stark was dangerous. So he didn't let himself show his overprotective nature to the other person who'd made his friend list. He just protected Clint Barton in secret.

"JARVIS," Tony said as he stepped into his lab. "How are Clint's new arrows working?"

"Agent Barton's arrows are working to specifications perfectly sir, as I'm sure you must be well aware. I still think you ought to have told him."

"Yeah, well, I disagree," Tony said with a smile. The arrows he'd made were working perfectly? Might as well test them.

"Bring up the tracking computer," He told JARVIS. "And hack into SHIELD's top secret classified mission assignments. That whole story about the 'low-threat but high-priority reconnaissance' assignment seemed too fishy, even by Fury's standards."

"Yes sir," JARVIS said reluctantly. A digital map of the world popped up on the holographic screen and with a red blip, zoomed in on a small area of sea over the North Atlantic ocean. The small spot was traveling fairly quickly, and another pop-up of information revealed that it was a quinjet.

On another holographic screen, SHIELD's mission logs came up and Tony reviewed them quickly. "Ah, so they're heading to Karachi," he said out loud. "To gather intel about Mr. Low-threat-high-priority himself. JARVIS, bring up any and all files relating to the current situation in Karachi, and all air-space between the quinjet and it's destination. Also bring up any and all files relating to the target, and I'm not just talking SHIELD files either. Start hacking."

"Yes sir," JARVIS replied coolly. "Information will be ready for view in approximately 92 minutes."

"Great," Tony said. "I'm gonna go get a coffee. Keep me posted on the quinjet's status and hey, finish up the diagnostic on the wiring in floor 17. The poor suits who work down there complained of dead outlets this morning."

"Yes sir..." JARVIS said again as Tony left the lab.

Tony returned exactly 92 minutes later, and thanked JARVIS as files upon files of information opened in holographic screens around him. He immediately began sifting through them, closing the ones he decided were irrelevant to his current mission.

"Too old," he muttered, sweeping one file away with his hand. "Outdated info... lousy informant... haha, that's just plain straight _wrong._.." Each of these statements followed by a dismissed file.

"Gotcha..." He said, zeroing in on one file in particular and using his hand to enlarge the image. A picture of the target appeared, along with his name, his age, his favorite color... pretty much, everything they had on this guy was easy pickings.

After reading for a few moments, Tony hissed. The target was a front, there was a terrorist group behind him, using his face as a cover for their illegal activity, and they were much smarter than SHIELD had been informed. SHIELD was playing straight into a trap, and Clint and Natasha were the real targets.

"JARVIS, activate the Mark IX," he said. "And uh, get rid of these files, delete all traces of the hack, you know the drill."

"Yes sir," JARVIS said. "Would you like me to inform Agents Barton and Romanoff that there is a potential situation and you are on your way?"

"Nah," Tony said. "I'll just deal with it before they get there."

If JARVIS could sigh, he would have done so, Tony was sure of it. As it was, he let out a slightly dry "Yes sir..." before the holographic files began to disappear.

"Thanks, J," Tony said before heading up to put on the suit. "If anyone asks for me, I'm at the bar and won't be back for a few hours."

"I expected nothing else, sir," JARVIS responded.

Tony smiled. With any luck, Clint would never even know that anything had happened, and Tony could continue playing the Rival-coworker card without anyone being any the wiser.

Because just like Rhodey and Happy, Clint was by far one of the strongest, most skilled men Tony had the pleasure of knowing. But a little extra-protection couldn't hurt. It was like Tony was just evening out the odds a little.

Making sure, with everything in his power, that his friends stayed safe.

* * *

The hospital room swam back into focus, and everyone instinctively turned to Clint, who was staring at Tony in shock, his mouth wide open.

"Well,what'd'ya know," Natasha said with a small incredulous smile. "Tony likes you."

Clint suddenly frowned. "Crap," he said, swinging his ever-present quiver over his shoulder. "Tony put a tracking device on my arrows?!"

"And we thought he would say _you_ were overprotective," Bruce noted.

Clint shot him a look before he began examining the quiver intently.

"He probably still would," Natasha said. "With Tony, it's one thing for him to do something, another altogether for someone else to do it to him."  
"Kinda hypocritical, don't'cha think?" Steve asked.

"That depends on what he's doing," Bruce said. "...But yeah, kinda."

"You're not gonna find anything," Natasha said to Clint, who was still searching his weapon for a tracking device. "Tony built you these himself, right? They're custom made?"

Clint exhaled slowly. "Yeah," he said. "You think he built the tracking device into it directly?"

"You can bet on it," Natasha said.

"Did anyone else notice that he said he wasn't officially an Avenger?" Bruce asked, looking around the room. "I didn't get that, why wouldn't he be an Avenger?"

Natasha shifted uncomfortably in her seat. "I'm afraid I'm somewhat responsible for that," she admitted. "You see, before the Chitauri threat, I was assigned to evaluate Tony Stark and see if he qualified for the Initiative. And I'm sorry to say that Tony was going through some stuff at the time of the evaluation, and because of that, he was unstable, volatile, a liability and hardly strong enough to handle being part of a team. I said no."

Everyone processed this bit of information.

"...I guess it's just fortunate for us that he changed," She said thoughtfully. "Really, with the state he was in, there's no way he could've handled the whole thing with Loki's negativity spell. But, at that time, he really was ready for the Avengers."

"One thing I do not understand," Thor said suddenly. "Is why we were shown this memory. It does not illicit the same emotion the others have, and it is hardly an unpleasant one."

"...No, he's right," Bruce said. "This doesn't make any sense, this memory wasn't a bad one. Why would we have to see this one?"

"Well," Natasha said, thinking back on the previous memories they had encountered. "Now that I think about it, that first one wasn't exactly a bad memory either."

Everyone considered this.

"...You're right," Steve said. "It was just a secret, it wasn't a bad memory like the other three."

"Perhaps we're being shown not his worst memories," Thor suggested. "But his secrets instead."

"...I'm not sure if that makes this better or worse," Clint said. "I mean, as much as I hate reliving Tony's worst memories, I'd feel a bit... bad... intentionally going into his head to find out his secrets."

He frowned, remembering how violated he'd felt after waking up from having Loki in his head. Would Tony feel the same sense of horror when he woke up? Would it be different knowing that it had been his friends, or would that just make it worse? It was apparent now that Tony had major trust issues, and with what Clint now knew, he couldn't blame him. But to wake up and find that the people he knew and worked with had watched him relive all of his secrets? What kind of repercussions could such an event have on their friendship, even this new one that Clint had only just found out?

As always, Natasha seemed to know what he was thinking, and he once again found her placing a hand on his shoulder comfortingly.

"I know what you mean," Bruce said, not oblivious to Clint's discomfort, but not fully understanding it either. He sighed. "It makes me wonder if we're doing the right thing."

"What do you mean?" Steve asked.

"Well..." Bruce said. "We're not entirely sure this will work anyway. For all we know, there could be a cure out there somewhere, and we're all in here playing Tony's memories like a movie when we don't have to be."

Everyone thought on this for awhile.

"...Do you think we should take a break?" Steve asked finally.

Bruce took his glasses off and pinched the bridge of his nose. "That's just the thing," he said. "I don't know what to do. We have no other leads, so if we don't do this, we're doing nothing. But what we're doing might just be harmful enough to... cause some damage, and I definitely don't want that."

Everything was quiet once again.

Finally, Steve sighed. "Alright," he said. "It's late, we've had a very long day, and we probably have an even longer one ahead tomorrow."

"Gee, thanks for that reminder," Clint muttered.

"So I suggest we all hit the sack for the night," Steve continued, ignoring the interruption. "We'll sleep on this, think it over. If none of us come up with a better plan, we'll keep doing things the way we have been doing. Agreed?"

Clint and Natasha exchanged a glance before nodding, and Thor sighed, closing his eyes before nodding as well. The group turned to Bruce, who had watched for them all to make up their minds before he did. He worried his bottom lip and glanced down at Tony. "Agreed," he said quietly.

Every one of them felt a small twinge of disappointment at the words, as well as a twinge of guilt. But no one said anything, and one by one they all left the room until it was just Clint and Natasha.

Natasha paused in the doorway when she realized Clint wasn't right behind her, and turned to see him frowning down at Tony.

"Clint?" she asked.

Clint looked at her. "When he wakes up from this," he said. "I'm gonna hit him for putting a tracking device on my quiver."


	6. Playback

_Author's notes: Sorry it took so long to update, real life has been a bit busy for me lately. I'm not going to be able to post very often anymore, although I still will post as often as possible. And if I don't respond to your reviews, that's for the same reason. I try to respond to each one, but sometimes, a few get missed. Anyway, I hope you enjoy the chapter!_

* * *

Around six in the morning, Steve Rogers decided he was done lying awake in bed, staring at the ceiling, and he got up with a small sigh.

He hadn't slept a wink; he had been thinking about Tony. He had already seen enough of his secrets, he decided. He didn't want to go see any more. That much he had figured out. As for another plan, though, that was where he came up short.

His mind kept coming back to one thing: finding the girl.

If they found the girl, they might be able to persuade her to reverse whatever she had done to Tony.

Walking through to the cafeteria, he spotted Bruce and Clint sitting at a table in the back of the cafeteria. Steve grabbed a cup of coffee and a piece of toast and walked over to join them.

"Couldn't sleep either?" Clint asked as Steve sat down.

Steve gave a dry chuckle in response before biting into his toast.

Bruce watched him for a second before he smiled himself. "Look at us," he said. "We all know we don't want to keep doing this. We all know we wouldn't want anyone going into our memories, why are we doing this?"

"Because," Steve said. "There's no alternative."

"But what if there was?" Natasha asked, appearing beside them and sitting down next to Clint.

"Why?" Steve asked, ignoring the fact that she had snuck up on him again. Even with his serum-advanced hearing, he knew by now that he would never be able to hear her coming. "What did you have in mind?"

"The answer is simple," Natasha said. "Find the girl. Get her to reverse this spell, or whatever it is."

Steve smiled, if he wasn't the only one who had thought of this, then it had to hold some weight.

"I thought that too," he said. "But I wouldn't know where to start."

"Well..." Bruce said with a reluctant sigh. "If we could access the data Tony recorded of the storm, we might be able to trace her signature."

"Well, why don't we, then?" Clint demanded.

"Because," Bruce said. "There's no guarantee the search would pan out. We don't even know if the girl's still on the planet."

Everyone thought on this.

"Alright, new plan," Steve said. "We keep doing what we have been doing, just in case, but we also begin searching for the girl. Doctor Banner, I'll leave that to you. I'm sure that if you need any help, we can find a few trustworthy SHIELD agents around somewhere."

Clint snorted. "That's likely," He quipped.

"We'll go ahead and... watch a memory as soon as Thor wakes up," Steve continued. "And then we'll have another EEG scan taken while Bruce begins the trace. That way, we can make sure that this is actually doing something worthwhile."

Everyone nodded.

"Uh, I have a request," Clint said.

"Go ahead," Steve said with a nod.

"We need to come up with some sort of code word for this whole thing about Tony's memories," Clint said. "For one thing, you never know who could be listening in."

This was ominous enough to cause everyone to get the sudden feeling that they were being watched, before Clint continued.

"For another thing, out and out saying it makes me feel weird," he said. "It's like when you're about to take out a target. You don't want to say that you're about to... kill someone, even though you know it's what's happening, you just don't like saying it out loud. So you're just taking out a target."

Natasha nodded, understanding what he meant.

"Alright," Steve said. "Any suggestions?"

Everyone looked at everyone else.

"...How about playback?" Natasha suggested. "You know, like you're rewatching something?"

They all considered this, and Steve looked around at the others, who all slowly nodded their agreement.

"Alright," Steve said. "We'll call it playback. Now, until Thor joins us, we might as well get started setting up the trace."

"I'll get right on it," Bruce said. "I think I'm the only person on the helicarrier with access to JARVIS right now, so he ought to be able to give me the data."

He pulled a new StarkPhone out of his pocket and began typing away. After realizing that everyone was looking at him, he cleared his throat. "What?" He asked.

"...Nothing," Natasha said. "It's just even SHIELD doesn't have access to that model yet. It's still under wraps."

Bruce gave a half-smile. "It pays to stick around," he said. "This isn't the new model. This is custom made. I helped design the unbreakable casing."

"How unbreakable?" Steve asked, who still sometimes forgot himself and snapped phones in half.

Bruce shifted his weight. "...That's part of how I helped," he said. "This is the_ final_ prototype, I should say. This is the one that passed the test."

Natasha quirked the corner of her mouth. "You're kidding me," she said.

Bruce shook his head. "Nope," he said. "He insisted I have a phone that wasn't susceptible to the Other Guy's smashing."

Clint threw his head back and laughed. "That's amazing," he said. "What's it made out of!?"

"Tony didn't tell me that," Bruce said. "He said it was such a big secret, he wasn't entirely sure himself."

Everyone chuckled at this, and Thor came in.

"Ah, friends," he said. "I have been thinking, and I believe that if we were to hunt down the witch who caused this, we might be able to reverse the curse!"

Everyone glanced at each other in amusement. "Steve, you wanna handle the recap?" Clint suggested, standing up. "I'm gonna go get Fury to erase the memories of everyone who just heard that."

Steve sighed. "Alright," he said. "Meet us in Tony's room when you've finished."

* * *

They all stood in Tony's room, the tension high.

"Alright, Bruce," Steve said. "Go ahead and... playback."

"See, isn't that much easier to say?" Clint noted, as Bruce touched Tony's arm and they were whisked away.

* * *

"JARVIS, give me everything we've got and put it through the Unibeam," Tony commanded, twisting in midair and slowing to a stop. He hovered as the flying monster they were sent to fight came flying towards him.

"Negative," He heard Cap's voice say through the intercom. "Stark, don't you dare, you'll kill yourself!"

Tony rolled his eyes before remembering that the action was lost with his faceplate on. "Noted," he said. "Tell Bruce to make sure they play one of those inspirational slideshows about my many achievements and breakthroughs. And you, stay away from my funeral."

He turned the intercom off as JARVIS informed him that the power had been diverted, and Tony smirked as the monster fell into the trap.

He shot the rest of his power through the Unibeam, and the monster went down with a roar.

"Yes!" Tony cheered, and then dipped in his flight as he made his way to the nearest roof-top. What Cap didn't know, what Cap couldn't have known, was that Tony now had a fail-safe integrated into his armor, "Everything we've got" wasn't truly everything. There would always be enough energy left over for at least ten minutes of sustained flight.

Speaking of which, he should probably get down to the rest of the group before Cap freaked out and sent Hawkeye after him. Again.

Landing in front of the super soldier, he deactivated the faceplate with a smirk.

"Don't tell me you died too," he said in mock seriousness.

"Tony that wasn't funny," Steve said with a frown. "Why do you insist on disobeying direct orders?!"

"Maybe because your orders always suck," Tony said. "And you never know what you're talking about anyway."

"Oh, great, they're at it again," Natasha said as she walked over to them. "Fine, you two have your spitting match while I go call Fury and tell him what happened."

She turned and left again, and Steve sighed. "Look, Tony," he said. "I understand that sometimes, I don't know everything about your suit. But you can't just disregard me like that! What if I had known about some other threat, that would've taken you out?"

Tony found himself getting angry. Maybe it was the stress of the battle. He didn't know. But he was angry.

"Yeah, well, you didn't," Tony said. "I know what I'm doing, Captain. So you can go ahead and play Commanding Officer all you want, when I see an opportunity, I take it."

"You can't do that," Steve said exasperatedly. "That's not how a team works, Tony. In order for this whole "Avengers" thing to work, you have to be willing to take commands!"

"I don't play well with others," Tony snapped. "I'm sure you read that, in my file, so there's no need to act all high and mighty about this. You knew what you were signing up for. Deal with it or go hang up your patriotic cowl, I don't need this."

With that, Tony took off for Stark Tower.

"Sir, that might not have been the wisest course of action," JARVIS said helpfully.

"Yeah, well, he was getting on my nerves," Tony said. "Trust me, I didn't say everything that was on my mind."

He frowned, wondering why he had gotten so angry. There really was no reason for it, he knew that. He just... ugh, it was Captain Freaking America! If anyone else had said it, he would've been fine.

The worst part of it was, it wasn't Steve's fault, and Tony knew it. He knew, in his head, that Steve had realized that Tony seemed to have some sort of problem with him, and that Steve had no idea why. If there was anything worse than hating a goody-goody like Captain America, it was knowing that he didn't deserve it.

Because every time they fought, Tony wasn't really fighting with Steve. And every time they fought, he could see the hurt and confusion on Steve's face. And it only made Tony feel guilty. He couldn't help himself, he always let his tongue loose, never mind the consequences, and he always hurt Steve's feelings, and he always felt like a jerk afterwards.

But... Captain America! Out of everyone in the world, Fury had to put _Captain America_ in charge.

_"Dad, will you tell me the story of how Captain America punched ol' Hitler in the jaw?"_

Tony shook his head. The memories were coming back. The memories always came back.

_"Oh Tony, you look so cute! Smile for the camera, I want to take a picture of you in your Captain America costume..."_

_"Happy birthday, I got you that new Captain America action figure you wanted!"_

_"Look, Tony, it's a new shirt, and it has Captain America's Shield on it!"_

Memories of being told the stories of the greatest man Howard Stark had ever known.

_"He saved billions of lives, Tony. The best heart we could have asked for!"_

_"No task was too great or too small. He could handle the toughest of missions, and he wasn't too proud to make you a sandwich."_

_"Everyone looked up to him, and he never let it get to his head. He, He was a true hero."_

Memories of never being good enough, memories of always living in the shadow of a man long gone.

_"Anthony Stark! Stop that right this instance! Would Captain America behave in such a way!?"_

_"Tony, for heavens sake, stop crying! A big boy like you, carrying on so! Did Captain America ever cry?"_

_"Tony, mind your manners. Captain America had good manners."_

The memories always came back. Every time he looked at Steve, he didn't see Steve at all. All he saw was the man who had single-handedly stolen his father.

_"Tony, be quiet, will you? I'm on the phone, they think they might've found where Captain America went down!"_

_"Tony, not right now, I have to pack. I'm leaving in the morning, I'm going to find Captain America."_

_"Daddy's tired, I had a very long trip, the lead went nowhere. Go bug the maid, I have a headache."_

It just wasn't fair, no matter what Tony did, no matter how hard he tried, it was never good enough.

_"That's great, son. Smile for the camera. Now, don't get a big head, it's just a circuit board. How is it going to keep the world safe? It's no Captain America."_

_"A motorcycle? Really? Thousands of people die in the war, and you build a motorcycle? Is that what Captain America would do?"_

_"Why would you build an AI? Artificial Intelligence isn't the future, kid. I thought you wanted to be a hero, like Captain America."_

Captain America, Captain America, all of his life, Tony had been bombarded with Captain America, held up to Captain America, compared to Captain America.

_"Steve Rogers would never have acted like that, Tony, you should be ashamed of yourself!"_

_"Why can't you be more like Steve Rogers, Tony? Steve was a nice young man, who gave his life for the people of the world, and you waste your youth on silly things like cars and computers."_

Or the fight that had finally broken them.

_"I'm sick of hearing about Captain America! You've never been there for me, it's always been about him!"_

_"Don't you say that, Captain America was a great man! You only wish you were half the man that he was!"_

_"I'm your son! Doesn't that count for something!?"_

_"Steve Rogers was a better son than you'll ever be, he was a hero, what are you, Tony? He did what was right because it was right. And what are you?"_

And then, after all those years, after Tony had finally forgiven his father for picking favorites, after he had finally decided that the past was the past, they had found Captain America.

And he was alive.

Tony had avoided meeting his childhood hero. Because he hated the man with everything in him.

And Tony knew that the Captain didn't deserve to be hated, he knew... but that just made it all the worse. Nobody was that good, nobody! And then Steve had to come onto the scene, and be the best man Tony ever knew, and everything his father had said had turned out to be true, and it only made Tony hate him even more. Because if it was true, then everything else was true, too. Tony was in the presence of the greatest hero who ever lived, and he fell short, he fell so, so short.

And then Captain America (Captain_ Freaking_ America) had taken one look at Tony, and he'd made the same judgment his dad had made. Because Tony was nobody's hero, Tony could never be a hero, not with Captain America in the room. And Captain America had called him on it.

Because no matter what Tony did, no matter how hard he tried, his father was always there, always lurking, making it impossible. Howard was the unspoken wall between the two of them. Whenever Tony looked at Steve, he saw the man his father had loved more than him. And he knew that whenever Steve looked at him, he saw a lesser son of a greater man. Howard had always chosen Steve over Tony, and Steve would always choose Howard. That's just how it was.

And so Tony was lost in the middle, forever outdone by men long dead.

And he hated them both for it.

* * *

The hospital room swam back into focus, and everyone looked at Steve.

Poor Steve was staring at Tony, horrified. "... I never knew," he whispered finally. "I never knew that he... that Howard... I never knew!"

No one said anything. No one knew what to say.

"He was right, too," Steve said. "I... as soon as I met him, I... I just saw somebody who looked like Howard, and talked like Howard, and was as brilliant as Howard, but... but he wasn't like him, and it hurt... It hurt to see someone who was so like my friend, but so different. It was like seeing a ghost."

"I understand your meaning," Thor said quietly. "To know that you have lost a good friend, and then to see that friend's spirit within another who is so different, it can be hard."

Steve blinked a few times, nodding. "I didn't know he noticed," he said. "I thought I was doing a good job of keeping it hidden."

"Tony notices a lot more than he lets on," Bruce noted. "I mean, he pretty much had me figured out a glance. He knew stuff about me that even I didn't know."

"Yeah, I remember," Clint said. "During the whole fight with the Chitauri, he kept saying that you would show up, even though we all thought he was delusional for it. And then, you showed up."

Bruce nodded. "I was a bit startled," he said. "When I pulled up on that motorcycle and Steve told Tony "We've got him," and Tony knew he was talking about me. I'd been fighting with myself to turn around and go back the entire ride."

"He had Loki figured out pretty well, too," Steve remembered, still quiet, still full of remorse. "After the attack on the helicarrier was over. He figured out Loki's plan so fast I barely knew what he was talking about."

"Sometimes I wonder what else he's noticed," Bruce said, and everyone looked at him.

"What do you mean?" Natasha asked.

"Well..." Bruce said. "It's kinda hard to explain. Tony's... well, Tony's a genius, he's reminded us of the fact often enough, we all know it by now."

Clint snickered. "Boy, you got that right," he said.

Bruce gave a half-smile and continued. "Sometimes, though, we just write him off as a genius, and forget how brilliant he really is. I've seen him come up with impossible equations in a moment, in his lab._ I'm_ a certified genius, and I can't keep up. And I know I've noticed a lot about Tony, so sometimes I just wonder, what does he notice about me? Sometimes, I catch him glancing at me, and I can tell by his face he's just figured something out. It... it makes me feel uncomfortable sometimes, knowing that he just figured out something about me that I didn't even know."

Everyone paused and glanced at Tony, suddenly wondering what on earth he could have noticed about them.

Clint laughed suddenly, and everyone turned to him quizzically. "It's just funny," he said, catching their glances. "Here we are, Tony's in a coma, practically the most vulnerable he's ever been, and he still manages to freak us all out by knowing too much."

They all blinked, and then Thor let out a hearty laugh, while Bruce chuckled, and even Natasha smirked.

Steve just sighed. "Well..." he said. "If only I was as smart. At least now I know why he's so difficult sometimes."

They all sat in silence for a little while longer.

Finally, Steve took a deep breath. "Well," he said. "There's no use crying over spilt milk. Bruce, go ahead and get to tracking down that magic signature. Thor, you know a lot about magic, maybe you can help him. Natasha, can you arrange for another EEG scan?"

Natasha nodded. "I'll get the results to you as soon as possible," she said, standing up.

"Good," Steve said with a nod, dismissing them. He was a natural leader, and the others never disputed with him. Except for Tony.

As Natasha and Clint left to head in search of the doctor, and Bruce left with Thor to work at finding a trace, Steve took one more glance at Tony before heading out himself. He was still reminded of Howard every time he saw the man, but little by little- before they had even started Playback, actually- he was finally starting to see Tony as his own entity, someone other than his father's son, and it shamed him to remember there was ever a time he thought otherwise.

He could only hope that the damage could be repaired.


	7. For the Camera

_Author's Notes: Okay, I'm having some trouble with my laptop. And as I am no Tony Stark, I stink with computers and have no idea how to fix it. I can, however, fudge through enough to get this chapter posted, so... we'll see how this works out. Hopefully, I'll have figured out what's going on by the time I need to post a new chapter._

_Anyway, this chapter turned out a bit different than the others, and quite a bit longer. I hope you enjoy!_

* * *

"Any luck?" Steve asked, walking up to where Bruce was working on tracking the girl down. The scientist was bent over a computer screen, a pencil in one hand scribbling over a piece of paper, while his other hand was resting over the keyboard, occasionally typing out a few calculations in the search. Thor was sitting off to the side, watching Bruce work with idle disinterest, as if deep in though.

Bruce sighed and reached up to his glasses, pulling them off to look at the Captain. "...None so far," he said. "I managed to extrapolate the data and determine the energy signature to look for, but I haven't been able to get a lock on the signature; it's like the girl is just... gone."

Steve nodded, feeling his high hopes deflate like a balloon. "Well, we always knew it was a long shot," he said. "Go ahead and keep trying, though. She might come back."

Bruce nodded and returned his glasses to his face, going back to his work with a sigh.

Steve also sighed before turning to leave the lab, making his way back to the med bay. He didn't go to Tony's room, however. Instead, he went to the room where Natasha should be just about finished with the EEG scan.

As he stepped into the room, Natasha stepped out, talking with Clint, who was with her.

"Oh, Captain, you're here," Natasha said. "Come with me."

Giving no other explanation, Natasha and Clint moved to leave the med bay, and Steve followed. They said nothing until they reached a door that Steve recognized as leading to Natasha's quarters. He'd never been inside before.

He didn't make an occasion out of it, though, he merely followed the two spies inside and stood near the door as Clint and Natasha did a sweep of the room.

"You think the place is bugged?" He asked, somewhat confused.

"Wouldn't put it past Fury, but no, I don't think so," Clint said. "This is more to keep us in the habit. And, you know, just in case."

"Ah," Steve said, although he was still a bit confused.

Finally, the room seemed to check out, and the three Avengers sat down.

"So, what's this about?" Steve asked.

"First off, here's the results for the scan," Natasha said, handing Steve a piece of paper from a file she'd been carrying under her arm. Steve took the sheet, blinking slightly, as he hadn't noticed the file, and he glanced it over.

"His brain activity's gone down, like before," Natasha said as he read. "Again, it didn't go down by much, but it's enough to make a noticeable difference."

"Good," Steve said. "Go on."

"The machine didn't short out this time, although it was close," Natasha continued. "At this point, we should be able to take a new scan after each playback, or at least, after every other time."

Steve nodded. "Also good," he said. "But you could have told me all this in the med bay. What's going on?"

Clint and Natasha looked at each other.

"...We've been talking to Fury," Clint said. "He still doesn't know everything that's happening, he only knows what we've told him. So, he knows that for some reason, the five of us are living out Tony's memories, and he knows that we're working on a way to reverse it."

"...Okay, go on." Steve said after a short pause, prompting Clint to continue.

"Well..." Clint said. "Fury suggested that in order to protect Tony and his secrets, we move to a more secure location. One of SHIELD's other bases. The helicarrier is too open to attack. If word were to get out about Tony's condition, we'd be sitting ducks."

"But, even if someone were to get in, they wouldn't be able to see the memories," Steve wondered. "It only works for the five of us, right?"

"Correct," Natasha said. "But even so, Tony is hardly able to defend himself at the moment. Playback or not, he's vulnerable. If we move to a more secure facility, we'll be better defended, just in case something does happen."

Steve thought for a moment, then nodded. "Good," he said. "Go ahead and tell Fury to do what he thinks best, I may not trust him with Tony's technology and information, but I trust him with our lives. In the meantime, Bruce hasn't had much luck in finding the girl, but he's trying."

Clint and Natasha nodded, and as the three stood up, Clint opened his mouth, before shaking his head and closing it again.

"Yes, Clint, what is it?" Steve asked.

Clint let out a small breath. "I just..." he said. "I just thought... it might be time to do another playback. I mean, it is working so far. It's making a difference."

Steve closed his eyes. He knew they probably should, but... he was dreading it. Especially after that last one. He wasn't sure there wouldn't be more like it.

Finally, he opened his eyes and nodded, not looking Clint in the eyes. He knew this was affecting the rest of the team as much as it was affecting him, and he didn't want to see it. Right now, he knew that Clint was torn between wanting to help his friend, and wanting to respect his friend's secrets.

"Alright," Steve said. "You go give Fury the go-ahead, and I'll get Bruce and Thor. Meet me in Tony's room when you're done."

The ninjas nodded and left, and Steve went back to the labs to fetch Bruce and Thor.

When he stepped inside, Bruce glanced up and, upon seeing the Captain, let out a chuckle. "That was quick," he said. "More bad news, then?"

"Not especially bad," Steve said. "We're going to head to a more secure facility for the time being, as the helicarrier is too open. And in the meantime, we're going to do another playback. That's why I'm here, to get the two of you."

Bruce stiffened ever so slightly, and pointedly didn't look away from his work. "Yeah, well, I'm gonna sit this one out," the scientist said. "Keep working on the tracker, you know. But tell me how it goes."

"Bruce, you know we can't do that," Steve said. "We all need to be there. We have no idea what could happen if you're not with us."

"Maybe we should experiment, then," Bruce said. "I mean, I'm pretty sure it won't kill him. On the flight over here, Thor wasn't even in the quinjet; he flew on ahead. And Clint was in the cockpit anyway. Maybe if I'm far enough away, I won't be affected."

"Wishful thinking," Steve stated, and Bruce slammed his hands down on the table with a loud bang, closing his eyes and clenching his teeth.

Thor stood up silently, hand on his hammer, and Steve froze, holding up a hand to still Thor.

"...Bruce?" He said cautiously, taking a tentative step forward.

Bruce took a few deep breaths, although he didn't look up, and his knuckled were white from clenching the side of the table. "I'm alright," he said quietly. "I just... forgot myself for a moment. Don't worry, I won't rip you apart."

Thor relaxed his grip on Mjolnir, and Steve took another step forward, still being a bit cautious. "...Well," he said. "...Ready to go?"

"No," Bruce said tiredly. "I'm not. I don't want to see one more memory, I don't want to have to live through one more secret, it's not right, Steve, you know it isn't." He opened his eyes and sent a glare to the information on the computer screen. "We're... We're breaking his trust. And I don't want to keep at it. I can't watch one. More. Memory!"

Steve saw where Bruce was heading, he saw as the man continued to get more and more agitated with every word. Walking across the floor the rest of the way, he stood on the other side of the strange see-through screen and impatiently ran his hand along the surface, sending the open files and the like to the side and out of view.

Bruce looked up, startled, and Steve took the opportunity to speak.

"Bruce," he said. "We're on the same team, we've fought the same battles. We've saved each others lives, on more than one occasion. You know that I would not do anything to hurt Tony, you know that everything I do, I do for the betterment of my team. And no, I don't like it any more than you do. But right now, this is the only thing that will help Tony. And I'm willing to do whatever it takes to get him back. Do you trust me enough to stand by my decision, even if you don't agree with it?"

For a moment, Bruce just looked at him through the glass, and Steve wondered if he would get any answer out of the man.

Finally, Bruce smiled sadly. "...Did you know," he said. "Tony once gave me a different kind of pep talk through this same monitor?"

Steve blinked. "...No," he said quietly. "I didn't."

Bruce nodded. "He was trying to tell me that the Hulk wasn't so bad... that he'd saved my life, kept me alive... and that there must be a reason behind it. He tried to tell me that the Hulk was a hero, and that... and that I was one, too..."

Steve didn't say anything, he just let Bruce compose himself and continue to speak.

"I didn't believe him then," Bruce said. "But... looking back now, I see that he was right... Yes, Steve, I trust you. And I'll do whatever it takes to bring Tony back, too. Even if... Even if it means losing him in the process."

Steve suddenly felt a choking sensation; one that he recognized from long ago... whenever things got too hard, too rough, before he had been Captain America, back when he had been an asthmatic little boy, growing up in Brooklyn during the great depression. He hadn't allowed himself to cry then, though, he sure wasn't about to start now.

The room was utterly silent, and for a few moments, no one so much as moved.

Then Bruce took a deep breath, and stood up straight. "Alright," he said, a trace of fear in his voice. "Let's get this over with."

With that, they made their way to the med bay, too meet up with Clint and Natasha and start the playback.

* * *

"Smile."

_Flash! Flash! Flash!_

"Mr. Stark! Over here!"

_Flash! Flash! Flash! Flash!_

"Tony! Any comment on the recent scandal involving the Stark Industries animal testing?"

_Flash! Flash!_

"Mr. Stark, who designed your suit?"

_Flash! Flash! Flash! Flash!_

"Can you give us an announcement date for the release of your new self-sustaining tablet?"

_Flash! Flash!_

"What are your plans as far as Iron Man is concerned?"

_Flash! Flash! Flash!_

"Mr. Stark!"

_Flash!_

"Tony!"

_Flash!_

"Over here!"

_Flash!_

Finally reaching the doorway of the museum, Tony turned to the crowd of reporters and gave them what they asked for, smiling a dazzling smile before announcing that he had no comment and turning to enter the building, cameras still flashing behind him.

* * *

"Smile."

_Flash!_

"Mr. Stark, can you tell us when you first noticed your son was, shall we say, brighter than most?"

_Flash! Flash!_

"Well, we've always known Tony was smart, right from the moment when he figured out how to unlatch the side of his crib and get out, he must've been, oh, I don't know, six or seven months at the time."

_Flash!_

"I see. And, now, to have built a circuit board, all by himself! And when did he first show interest in computers?"

_Flash! Flash!_

"Ah, that was a proud moment... he just walked up to me, and he said "Daddy, will you help me with this wiring?" And I looked down, and there it was, the beginnings of a great feat! Of course, he needed quite a bit of help, but this... this is his first step into a world of progress and invention!"

_Flash!_

"And Tony, can you tell us a little bit about yourself? What kind of things do you like to do?"

_Flash!_

"Um... well, I like to, um... build things. And I like to color, coloring's really fun."

_Flash! Flash!_

"Anything else?"

_Flash!_

"Well... I like to read, 'bout history and stuff."

_Flash!  
_

"I see, and Mr. Stark, you've decided to homeschool Tony, is that right?"

_Flash!_

"Yes, both Maria and I agreed, with Tony as bright as he is, he really would get the most if he were to be homeschooled, instead of being taught with the older children sharing his mental capacity."

_Flash! Flash!_

"Alright, well, thank you for the interview, Mr. Stark. Tony, give us one more smile before we go, alright?"

And Tony obliged, smiling up at the camera man as he posed next to his circuit board, with his father behind him, and the camera flashed again.

* * *

"Smile."

_Flash! Flash! Flash!_

"Have you seen these pictures? What's going on in Gulmira?"

_Flash! Flash!_

"Tony, Tony," Obadiah says. "You can't afford to be this naive."

_Flash! Flash! Flash!_

"You know what? I was naïve before, when they said 'here's the line. We don't cross it."

_Flash! Flash! Flash! Flash!_

"This is how we do business.

_Flash! Flash!_

"If we're double-dealing under the table… Are we?"

_Flash! Flash! Flash!_

"Tony! Your picture, please!"

"Take a picture, come on. Picture time!"

_Flash! Flash!_

"Tony. Who do you think locked you out?"

_Flash!_

"I was the one who filed the injunction against you."

_Flash!_

"It was the only way I could protect you."

As Obadiah gives one last smile to the press, he walks away and steps into a limo, leaving Tony on the steps, horribly confused, and a bit hurt as well. Why would Obadiah lock him out? Protect him from what? He wasn't trying to ruin the company or anything, he just didn't want to have weapons be his name anymore. He was fine, really, he was fine... He wasn't about to go crazy and hurt himself or anything. They didn't have to treat him like an invalid. As the cameras flashed around him, he turned and left, not even giving them a smile...

* * *

"Tony, smile, come on," Maria coaxed her son. "Just one smile. For mommy, please, just one smile."

"No." Tony insisted. "I don't feel like smiling."

"Please, honey, not even a little one?"

"No."

"Come on, dear, mommy's friends will be here in a few moments, and I want them to see what a polite little gentleman you are. Please, just give me one smile, just one. Please, Tony, please?"

Tony pouted obstinately, but he shifted his weight nervously, giving Maria some hope.

"Tell you what," she said. "If you're a nice little boy during mommy's party, and if you smile to all of mommy's friends, mommy will take you shopping tomorrow and buy you anything you want. Deal?"

Tony bit his bottom lip, thinking of things he could ask for. He supposed he could get more coloring books, and there were a few parts he needed to finish his latest circuit board...

"Deal," he said, smiling up at his mother with a sigh.

* * *

"Tony?" Pepper asked, looking up from where she had her head resting on Tony's shoulder. They had been officially dating for almost a month

"Yes?" Tony asked absently, fully focused on the movie they were watching.

"How come you don't smile more?"

Tony looked at her. "What?" He asked.

"How come you don't smile more?" Pepper asked. "I mean, you've got such a nice smile, but I've only ever seen you smile a few times since I've known you. Not counting for the press, of course."

"Oh, of course." It was obvious to both Pepper and Tony, whatever one did and said in front of the press didn't really count for anything.

"I mean, I understand if you're just not a smiler," Pepper said, trying to backtrack. "Some people are like that. I just... I just thought of it, and it made me wonder."

"Who says I don't like to smile?" Tony asked, thinking. Did he really smile so rarely that Pepper found the need to wonder about it? He didn't mean to not smile.

"Tony, you're frowning right now," Pepper noted with a half-smile herself.

"Am I?" Tony asked, startled. "That... That's just my thinking face."

Pepper laughed. "Well, whatever it is, I'm not trying to change you," she said, turning back to the movie. "You keep doing what you do, forget I brought it up."

But Tony didn't forget. Pepper deserved to have everything he could give her, and if that was just a smile every now and again, he would do his best to deliver.

Looking down at her as she continued to watch the movie, he quirked the corner of his mouth into a small smile.

For once, it almost felt real.

* * *

The room swam back into focus, and the Avengers found themselves staring at Tony, not sure... exactly HOW they were feeling right now.

"That..." Clint said after a long while. "That was... weird."

Everyone nodded their agreement.

"...I mean, I don't know if I've ever really seen Tony smile, either," Clint continued. "I hadn't noticed. I never really thought about it."

"I as well," Thor said. "Thinking back upon it, I can't say that I recall it."

"I've seen him smile," Bruce noted. "But, I've spent the most time with him, and I catch him in his best moods sometimes, when we have a breakthrough in some experiment."

"I have seen him smile before," Natasha said. "But with everything else he's fudged through, I wouldn't be surprised to learn now that it was just an act."

"But there it is again, his frustrations at the press," Steve said with a slight frown. "We saw five memories this time, three of them had so many cameras it about gave me a headache."

"No kidding," Bruce said with a dry chuckle. "Tony doesn't ever let me leave the tower until I'm disguised, he says the press would have a hard time interviewing the Hulk. Now I see why. I suppose he's a bit used to it, though... I mean, he's been taking interviews since he was at least four, we all saw that..."

Everyone nodded. "...Okay," Clint said. "Does anyone else find it just a bit... pathetic that he had to actually try when he smiled at Pepper?"

No one said anything, but no one denied it.

"I don't smile much either, now that I think about it," Clint continued. "But at least when I do, it's natural."

"Do I smile a lot?" Steve asked suddenly. "I don't... I don't know if I do or not."

"I've seen you smile before," Natasha said. "Although, it's not a lot. You still smile fairly often, though."

"And I?" Thor asked with a smile.

"You're smiling right now, buddy," Clint said, and the infectiousness of Thor's smile caused everyone in the room to quirk small smiles of their own, just by looking at him.

"Well, I know I smile a lot," Bruce said. "It helps keep a check on the anger."

They all glanced at Natasha then, but no one let their glances linger. "It's alright," she said. "I know I don't smile. Unless I need to pull a scam."

"No, I've seen you smile before," Bruce said.

"...Really?" Natasha asked. But... Smiling was showing an emotion. Something she never did. Unless, as stated before, she was pulling a scam.

"Yeah, I have," Bruce said. "It was on the helicarrier, that first day I met you. Fury told you to show me the lab, and you said I'd like it, because SHIELD had all the toys. And then you smiled."

Natasha blinked. "Huh," she said. "So I did."

It made her feel happier than it should, just the simple fact that she had smiled before. A smile was such an insignificant thing, nothing important, nothing of any real value... and yet, she found herself feeling glad that she had done it before.

With all of the things she had done in her past, though... it made sense that she wouldn't smile a whole lot. In a way, a real smile made someone... human. She breathed a small breath of relief, a breath she hadn't realized she'd been holding, and she was very startled to find that she felt a huge weight lifted from her shoulders.

She was human. She'd always known, but now... now it really settled in. She was just as human as anyone else, despite the red in her ledger.

The euphoria of the discovery caused her to suddenly giggle, before she clamped her mouth shut, embarrassed.

The other Avengers all looked at her in shock. "Natasha?" Clint asked.

"Nothing," She answered, now struggling with a new problem she'd never had to face before. She couldn't stop smiling. She bit her bottom lip in an effort to stop, but she just smiled even more. "Um, well, I gotta go," she said, standing up and taking off before anyone had the chance to say anything.

The other Avengers all looked at each other in stunned silence. "What do you suppose that was about?" Bruce asked, turning to Clint.

"I don't even know," Clint said, shrugging his shoulders. "That was the first time she's ever done anything like that, for as long as I've known her, anyway."

After a few more moments, Steve stood up. "Well," he said. "I guess that means we're done for now. Everyone go ahead and take a break, we'll meet back here in an hour-"

No sooner had the words left his mouth and the others all stood up and left the room, and Steve chuckled to himself before turning to Tony.

"...Well," he said quietly. "I don't know if you can hear me, in fact, I'm pretty sure you can't. But let me tell you, I will forever remember today as the day we made the Black Widow laugh."


End file.
